Today’s NYT Connections Tips, Answers for December 14 #552

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, and Strands puzzles.

The New York Times Connections Puzzle is quite difficult today. I mean, it’s a little tricky every day, but even the supposedly easy yellow category had me wondering about the answer. I bet the Connections editor walks around jotting down words that would work in the puzzle when they take a trip to the grocery store or just walking down the street, and memorize words that have two meanings so that us puzzlers can pull our hair out every day. Kudos to them for their service.

Read more: New NYT Connections game for sports fans has players swinging for the fences

Tips for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connection Puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group, to the difficult (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Swimming.

Green group hint: Bid it up.

Blue group hint: Such as yen or euro.

Purple group hint: Stanley would be one.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Fish

Green group: Words in a sentence ending in auction.

Blue group: Global currencies.

Purple group: Words before ‘cup’.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here are the most popular letters used in English words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is fish. The four answers are fluke, harder, tongue and tang.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is words in a sentence that ends in the auction. The four answers are: once, sold and twice.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is global currencies. The four answers are pound, real, sol and yuan.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is words before ‘cup’. The four answers are butter, Diva, Solo and World.