Today’s board takes us from a LITTLE TOWN to a CAPITAL CITY—or at least that’s how it may appear at first. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Sunday, November 26, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for November 26, NYT Connections #168! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.
If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.
Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!
Credit: Connections/NYT
Does today’s Connections game require any special knowledge?
There’s one phrase relating to soccer, and a few to banking, but nothing too obscure.
Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle
Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:
-
Yellow category – Places to live.
-
Green category – Methods in the kitchen.
-
Blue category – Money matters.
-
Purple category – Out of your league?
Does today’s Connections game involve any wordplay?
There’s a fill-in-the-blank category for purple again.
Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.
BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!
We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)
What are the ambiguous words in today’s Connections?
-
A CAPITAL can be a CITY, a non-lowercase letter, or a word for investment money.
-
Your PULSE can be your heartbeat, or it can be the way you operate a food processor when you want to CHOP things roughly.
-
EQUITY can be a social concept, or a term for an ownership INTEREST.
-
JUSTICE is a word with one meaning and many uses. (A judge in the Supreme Court, for example.) I also learned from Joy Buolamwini’s new book, Unmasking AI, that the term “JUSTICE League” predates the superhero franchise; there was an Equal JUSTICE League of Young Women formed in 1911 (for women’s suffrage), a JUSTICE League for workers’ rights in 1914, and a civil rights organization in 1923 called the Race JUSTICE League. Buolamwini founded the Algorithmic JUSTICE League to fight bias in AI.
What are the categories in today’s Connections?
-
Yellow: MUNICIPALITIES
-
Green: BLENDER BUTTONS
-
Blue: FINANCIAL TERMS
-
Purple: ____ LEAGUE
DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW
Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.
What are the yellow words in today’s Connections?
The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is MUNICIPALITIES and the words are: CITY, COUNTY, TOWN, VILLAGE.
What are the green words in today’s Connections?
The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is BLENDER BUTTONS and the words are: CHOP, GRIND, PULSE, PUREE.
What are the blue words in today’s Connections?
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is FINANCIAL TERMS and the words are: CAPITAL, EQUITY, INTEREST, STOCK.
What are the purple words in today’s Connections?
The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is ____ LEAGUE and the words are: IVY, JUSTICE, LITTLE, PREMIER.
How I solved today’s Connections
EQUITY can mean a concept that connects equality with JUSTICE, but it can also mean ownership of monetary value. In that sense, it goes logically with INTEREST, STOCK, and CAPITAL. 🟦
On to the GRIND: Once I stopped thinking about the word by itself, and softened my eyes to see the whole board, I realized it went with PUREE, PULSE, and CHOP as settings on a food processor or blender. 🟩
CITY, TOWN, and IVY had me thinking of college towns; then I realized I was close with IVY league. The board also contains a LITTLE league, a JUSTICE league, and (once I remember that Europe exists) a PREMIER league. 🟪
Finally, I’ve got some locations: CITY, COUNTY, TOWN, and VILLAGE. (I recall these each having a specific technical meaning in New York state; there are also “hamlets” in New York but those are unofficial. New York does not, to my knowledge, do “townships.”) 🟨
Connections Puzzle #168 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟨🟨🟨🟨
How to play Connections
I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:
First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Crossword app. You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).
Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.
You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.
How to win Connections
The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.
If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.
Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!
Comentarios recientes