NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Wednesday, February 21

Looking for Tuesday’s Connections hints and answers? You can find them here:

MORE FROM FORBESNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Tuesday, February 20By Kris Holt

It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means: it’s time for another game of Connections!

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers are coming right up.

How To Play Connections

In Connections, you’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like horror movie franchises, a type of verb or rappers.

There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is typically the hardest one to deduce. The purple group often involves wordplay, so bear that in mind.

Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.

If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers.

What Are Today’s Connections Hints?

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are:

• SUPER
• COMPUTER
• BUGS
• COMPANY
• HOUNDS
• CATS
• FISH
• BADGERS
• HARD KNOCKS
• PIANO
• CABARET
• ROCK
• ANNIE
• THOUGHT
• TESTS
• NAGS

And the clues for today’s groups are:

1. Yellow group — annoys
2. Green group — Broadway award winners
3. Blue group — linked by a group of notes comprising a scale or islands off the south of Florida
4. Purple group — educational facilities, perhaps

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Need some extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Today’s groups are…

• Yellow group — pesters
• Green group — Tony winners for Best Musical
• Blue group — they have keys
• Purple group — school of _____

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are…

• Yellow group — pesters (BADGERS, BUGS, HOUNDS, NAGS)
• Green group — Tony winners for Best Musical (ANNIE, CABARET, CATS, COMPANY)
• Blue group — they have keys (COMPUTER, PIANO, SUPER, TESTS)
• Purple group — school of _____ (FISH, HARD KNOCKS, ROCK, THOUGHT)

I scored a perfect game today, which means my overall winning streak is up to four.

I didn’t have too much trouble today, though I’m glad the blues were my last group because I have some issues with that.

As soon as I saw HARD KNOCKS, my brain instantly went to “school of.” I quickly spotted three other words that align with that. The yellows were next. I thought that was a fun group, since if you equate NAGS to horses, these are all animals.

I wasn’t 100% certain about including COMPANY with the greens. I had an inkling it was the name of a play (I figured the group was simply “Broadway shows”) and took a risk that paid off.

As far as the blues go, I was prepared to complain that a COMPUTER does not, in fact, have keys. A keyboard does. But I realized a computer itself can have keys — security keys, passkeys and so on. So I’ll give Connections a pass there.

I’m not sure how TESTS fits in here though, unless the game is referring to an answer key, and not being American, I would not have thought of SUPER as superintendent, but that does make sense in this group. It would have been fun to have FLORIDA instead of one of those.

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog for hints and the solution for Thursday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I don’t include a song with every one of these columns, but I can’t resist doing so when today’s terms include both ANNIE and HARD KNOCKS. This is the song that first made me aware of Jay-Z — it was certainly his breakthrough hit in the U.K. when I was a kid.