NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Saturday, January 18

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

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Friday, January 17By Kris Holt

Hey, folks! Welcome to the weekend. I hope you’ve got a truly excellent one lined up. I’m planning to get a few things done around my place that I’ve been putting off, but of course I’ll make plenty of time to relax and fit in a workout or two.

Also, how about that Nintendo Switch 2, huh? Not too many surprises in the announcement, given all of the leaks and rumors that have been flying around. I have no doubt that I’ll be picking one up on launch day and eventually ignoring it to play games on my PC or PS5 or Xbox or Steam Deck instead.

Before we get going, I’ve started a discussion group for Connections and this column on Discord. You can chat about each game (and other topics) with me and other folks. I’m always interested to find out how other people approach the game, so join us! It’s fun.

It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, January 18, are coming right up.

How To Play Connections

Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.

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 items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.

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 usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.

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. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.

If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.

Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints for each grid via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.

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...

• LABEL
• SPINE
• PAGE
• TIDE
• URGE
• STICKER
• TRACK
• SPUR
• CORNER
• ARTIST
• DRIVE
• TABLES
• ITCH
• THORN
• ALBUM
• IMPULSE

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — passion
• Green group — don't step on any of these!
• Blue group — details on a 45
• Purple group — it's perhaps time for a revolution

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Need some extra help?

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

Today’s Connections groups are...

• Yellow group — desire
• Green group — barb
• Blue group — info on a record
• Purple group — turn the ____

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 — desire (DRIVE, IMPULSE, ITCH, URGE)
• Green group — barb (SPINE, SPUR, STICKER, THORN)
• Blue group — info on a record (ALBUM, ARTIST, LABEL, TRACK)
• Purple group — turn the ____ (CORNER, PAGE, TABLES, TIDE)

Three perfect games in a row, and my overall streak is up to six. Here's how I fared:

🟨🟨🟨🟨

🟦🟦🟦🟦

🟪🟪🟪🟪

🟩🟩🟩🟩

I found this slightly tougher than some other games from the last few days, but it’s been a relatively easy week overall. I’m starting to dread what tomorrow might bring. We’re not too far away from game 600 either.

In any case, the yellows were very straightforward here. Once I saw ALBUM and ARTIST close together, it only took a moment to figure out the blues (despite the potential red herrings between LABEL and STICKER).

I had a little trouble with the greens and purples. SPINE, PAGE and CORNER could have gone together as parts of a book. But once I realized SPINE, SPUR and THORN had to be aligned, I figured out that STICKER should go with them, even though I haven’t heard that word used in this context before.

Still, I submitted the purples before the greens. I figured out the connection there, as those are all common expressions.

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

P.S. My clue for the blues reminded me of one of my favorite songs of the ‘90s. “Brimful of Asha” by Cornershop was a very good track already, but Fatboy Slim’s remix elevated it to new heights. I’m going to be dancing to this all day:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!

If you’re so inclined, please do follow my blog for more coverage of Connections and other word games and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.