NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Thursday, January 23

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

ForbesNYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Wednesday, January 22By Kris Holt

Hey, everyone! I hope you’re taking care of yourselves out there.

For various reasons, I’m trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on social media. Keeping it largely at bay has been quite helpful this week in particular.

I got rid of most of those apps on my phone recently, retaining Instagram only to keep up with my friends’ stories. I still have a few messaging apps, but I only look at Twitter these days at my desk for newsgathering. I still enjoy Bluesky and Reddit, but I’m trying to use those only in small doses. These decisions have been for the better, I think.

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 23, 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...

• BETTER
• BLANKET
• SATCHEL
• PAGAN
• WIDEN
• COOLER
• WHIP
• SMARTER
• BASKET
• ECLIPSE
• BOMBER
• UTENSILS
• TOP
• FEDORA
• SURPASS
• VIXEN

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — exceed
• Green group — park dining essentials
• Blue group — you might need these if you pretend to go digging for precious artifacts
• Purple group — a little like holders of high office

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 — outdo
• Green group — picnic accessories
• Blue group — parts of an Indiana Jones costume
• Purple group — rhymes of U.S. president names

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 — outdo (BETTER, ECLIPSE, SURPASS, TOP)
• Green group — picnic accessories (BASKET, BLANKET, COOLER, UTENSILS)
• Blue group — parts of an Indiana Jones costume (BOMBER, FEDORA, SATCHEL, WHIP)
• Purple group — rhymes of U.S. president names (PAGAN, SMARTER, VIXEN, WIDEN)

Yet another perfect game today, though it was a bit of a lucky one. That streak is up to eight, and my overall winning run has reached 11 games. Here's how I fared:

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🟪🟪🟪🟪

🟩🟩🟩🟩

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It took me just a few seconds to realize that WHIP, FEDORA and SATCHEL were all Indiana Jones-related. I figured BOMBER would make sense with those, since one of the big set pieces in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a fight that takes place in and around a bomber. Not exactly the correct thought process, but at least I had the blues sorted.

From there, I was able to deduce the rest of the groups easily enough. Well, at least I figured out the greens and yellows were. That left the purples, and I submitted those next.

I had no clue here, even if it's kind of fun to have a slightly more difficult purple group than the ones we've had lately. I was getting a little too comfortable, if we're being honest. Those presidents are Ronald Reagan (PAGAN), Jimmy Carter (SMARTER), Richard Nixon (VIXEN) and Joe Biden (WIDEN).

The greens were next, and then the yellows wrapped up yet another perfect game.

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 missed a trick by not using this as my recommendation when we had a group of fictional doctors earlier this week. But I wasn’t about to make that mistake again with an Indiana Jones group in the mix today.

Aqua had more songs than just “Barbie Girl.” In fact, that was just one of three U.K. number one singles the group had. Here’s another one, an infectious Eurodance track called “Doctor Jones:”

Their other number one is also worth a listen. “Turn Back Time” is a solid pop ballad:

(”Cartoon Heroes” is a fun song too. Hey, Aqua are a good band!)

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.