NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Thursday, January 16

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

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Wednesday, January 15By Kris Holt

Hey there, folks! I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far.

I’ve started catching up on movies and TV shows I’ve been meaning to watch while working out on my rowing machine. I loved Inside Out 2. Perhaps not quite as much as the first one, because it was a bit of a retread story-wise, but it still really landed for me.

And then there was the remake of Speak No Evil. As great as James McAvoy is in it, I wish I’d watched the original version first (I started it, but had to drop out after 10 minutes or so).

I guess I should get around to season two of Squid Game, but I also want to get through all of What We Do In The Shadows.

Anyway, 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 Thursday, January 16, 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...

• MARKET
• SWITCH
• PLANT
• MALL
• TRADE
• GYM
• OUTLET
• ASSET
• RUG
• BUSINESS
• MOLE
• SCONCE
• PACK
• AGENT
• BASEBOARD
• COMMERCE

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — these are seen as pillars of the economy
• Green group — home fixtures
• Blue group — surreptitious gatherers of information
• Purple group — "wood" and "roof" would fit in here

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 — buying and selling
• Green group — installed on a wall
• Blue group — spy
• Purple group — ____rat

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 — buying and selling (BUSINESS, COMMERCE, MARKET, TRADE)
• Green group — installed on a wall (BASEBOARD, OUTLET, SCONCE, SWITCH)
• Blue group — spy (AGENT, ASSET, MOLE, PLANT)
• Purple group — ____rat (GYM, MALL, PACK, RUG)

A perfect game brings me up to four wins in a row. Here's how I fared:

🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟨🟨🟨🟨

🟪🟪🟪🟪

🟦🟦🟦🟦

No real trouble at all today. I didn't see any obvious red herrings in the mix other than MALL and OUTLET as possibilities for the yellows (let me know if you saw others!).

SCONCE led me straight into the greens, while the yellows were a cinch. Same goes for the blues, but I submitted the purples first after figuring out that connection.

I find it amusing that PACK can go either before or after "rat." And while it's tempting to drop in a Frank Sinatra song below, I'll save that for another day since I already said what today's recommendation was going to be.

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 Friday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I promised another Games Done Quick run, and this is my favorite ever. In this run from last year's Summer Games Done Quick, a shina ibu named Peanut Butter plays Ken Griffey Jr. Presents MLB with the help of his human, JSR_. Yeah, you read that correctly, this is a video of a dog trying to win a round of video game baseball.

PB (which also stands for Personal Best) is the absolute best boy and this video is just tremendous fun. I love how invested the crowd is here:

Have a great day! Make sure to drink enough water! 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.