‘Connections’ January 1: Hints and Answers for Puzzle [Video]

Happy New Year, Connections players! If the holiday isn’t stopping you from playing, Newsweek is here to help you beat today’s puzzle.

The popular brainteaser was launched by The New York Times in June 2023 and has gone on to become the newspaper’s second-most played game behind Wordle, another word-based puzzle.

Connections challenges players to uncover threads connecting a series of words. Instructions on how to play the game are below. Clues and the answers for today’s puzzle are toward the end of the article.

How To Play ‘Connections’

Every day, Connections presents players with a grid of 16 words. The objective is to organize these words into four groups of four, based on shared themes or characteristics.

The four groups are color-coded by difficulty: yellow (easiest), green, blue, and purple (most challenging). Select four words you believe form a group, and, if correct, those words will be highlighted and removed from the board. The color corresponding to the group will be …