NYT Connections Today – Hints and Answers for Thursday, November 21 (Game #529)
Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers into different categories. It can be tricky, so read on if you need pointers.
What should you do when you’re done? Of course, play some word games. I also have daily Wordle Hints and Answers, Strands Hints and Answers and Quordle Hints and Answers articles if you need help with those too.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about today’s NYT Connections is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
NYT Connections Today (Game #529) – Today’s Words
Today’s words from NYT Connections are…
- ВОВА
- FETT
- POLO
- STAR
- OXFORD
- SPONGE
- BEL
- PENS
- PEARL
- TORTE
- CORAL
- TEE
- SIT
- JELLY
- FLANNEL
- TAPIOCA
NYT Connections Today (Game #529) – Hint #1 – Group Hints
What are some pointers for today’s NYT Connections groups?
- Yellow: Top half clothing type
- Vegetable: Ingredients (or constituents) in a certain type of drink
- Blue: Under the sea
- Purple: CANN is another
Need more clues?
We’re firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four themed answers are for today’s NYT Connections puzzles…
NYT Connections Today (Game #529) – Hint #2 – Group Answers
What are the answers for today’s NYT Connections groups?
- YELLOW: TYPES OF SHIRTS
- GREEN: AREAS IN MILK TEA
- BLUE: Marine invertebrates, known
- PURPLE: START OF PASTA NAMES
Okay, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Connections Today (Game #529) – The Answers
The answers to today’s Connections game, game #529, are…
- YELLOW: TYPES OF SHIRTS FLANNEL, OXFORD, POLO, TEE
- GREEN: AREAS IN MILK TEA BOBA, BUBBLE, PEARL, TAPIOCA
- BLUE: Marine invertebrates, known CORAL, JELLY, SPONGE, STAR
- PURPLE: BEGINNING OF PASTA NAMES FETT, PENN, TORTE, ZIT
- My rating: Difficult
- My score: Failure
Okay, this was just too hard for me. I don’t beat myself up about it; I just wasn’t smart enough to reach all four groups. Scrap that – I was only smart enough to get one group.
I dissolved yellow and discovered that FLANNEL and POLO were both TYPES OF SHIRTS. TEE – which until then I thought might be a homophone for TEA – was clearly a different recording, but I wasn’t sure about the fourth. But I thought maybe OXFORD was an example too, and it was. It probably has something to do with college or something, I don’t know – but it seemed to fit (pardon the pun).
After that, nothing. I had several clues, and a few were on the right lines, but in both cases I couldn’t put the right four together. Green – PEARLS IN MILK TEA – was one I had a suspicion about, as I know TAPIOCA is an ingredient and they are PEARLS. And of course they also contain BUBBLEs. But I heard of BOBA, so I didn’t get it.
Similarly, I thought that CORAL and SPONGE could go together in a group related to marine life, and separately I also considered JELLY and STAR to be words with FISH after them. But I didn’t put the four together, possibly because two were abbreviated and two were not. To me that feels a little disingenuous of the NYT, claiming that they are all INVERTEBRATES, FAMILIAR; I’m not sure I’ve ever used the word STAR to refer to a starfish, or JELLY to talk about a jellyfish.
Of course, that wouldn’t have mattered if I had solved any of the other groups, so I won’t dwell on it. And purple was just way too difficult, I really had no idea about that at all. I think I’ll start building again tomorrow…
How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.
Yesterday’s NYT Connections answers (Wednesday, November 20, game #528)
- YELLOW: SOUNDS LIKE A DOG BARK, BAY, HOW, SNOW
- GREEN: BROADCAST, AS ONLINE MEDIA AIR, PLAY, RUN, STREAM
- BLUE: VERBS for making cocktails Garnish, muddle, stir, strain
- PURPLE: ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES, METAPHORICAL CHAIN, LADDER, PYRAMID, TREE
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of the New York Times’ increasingly popular word games. It challenges you to find groups of four items that have something in common, and each group has a different level of difficulty: green is easy, yellow is slightly harder, blue is often quite hard, and purple is usually very hard.
On the plus side, you technically don’t have to solve the last question because you can answer it by a process of elimination. Plus, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you some breathing room.
It’s a bit more complicated than something like Wordle, though, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For example, beware of homophones and other word games that can obscure the answers.
It is playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
