Today’s NYT Connections Hints and Answer for July 7 (#392)

Connections is a game from the New York Times that challenges you to find the association between words. It sounds easy, but it isn’t—Connections categories can be almost anything, and they’re usually quite specific. If you need a hand getting the answers, we’ve got you covered.

What Is Connections?

Connections is a game from the New York Times. The objective is simple: sort 16 words into groups of 4. Each group of words will be connected by some common idea or theme. That common element could be anything. We have seen everything from games that rely on the number of letters in the words to categories that require you to spot an extra letter at the end of the word. Sometimes they’re references to economics, other times they reference fairy tales. There is no telling what sort of association there will be between words.

Once you’re confident you understand the connection, select 4 words, then hit “Submit.” You have only four attempts in total, so don’t be too guess-happy.

Hints for Today’s Connections Groups

Here are a few hints for the 392nd Connections game to get you started:

• Yellow: From a liquid to a gas and back.
• Green: When you need another option.
• Blue: An informal way to describe some jobs.
• Purple: Popular songs, excluding “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

If you still need help, the actual group names are:

• Yellow: Change States of Matter
• Green: Replacement
• Blue: Slangy Names for Professions
• Purple: Mariah Carey Number One Hits

Today’s NYT Connections Answers

Change States of Matter (Yellow):

Condense, Freeze, Melt, Vaporize

Replacement (Green):

Alternate, Backup, Cover, Sub

Slangy Names for Professions (Blue):

Copper, Hack, Shrink, Suit

Mariah Carey Number One Hits (Purple):

Fantasy, Hero, Honey, Someday

How Did We Solve This Connections Game?

July 7th was hard for me, but that was basically only because of my musical taste.

Condense, freeze, melt, and vaporize jumped out at me instantly as terms related to phase changes. I thought specifically about water, but it applies to other materials too. The Yellow group was “Change States of Matter.” Yesterday’s Yellow group was also a science-related term.

Alternate, backup, cover, and sub were also pretty straight forward terms. They’re all roughly synonymous with alternative or replacement, and that seemed like a good enough guess. Green was literally just “Replacement.”

Here, things got harder.

I eventually realized that shrink and copper are slang terms for a psychologist (or psychiatrist) and a police officer respectively, which clued me in that we might be looking for slang terms for jobs. A suit is a broad term that can refer to any sort of white collar employee that wears a suit as part of a work uniform. It is usually reserved for management or executives. A hack is even broader—it refers to someone in a professional field that is pretty bad at their job. The Blue group was “Slangy Names for Professions.”

That left fantasy, hero, honey, and someday. I could not for the life of me figure it out, so I just stuck them together. It turns out that Purple was “Mariah Carey Number One Hits.” I could have tried to figure that out for the rest of my life and I would literally never have arrived at that connection. Thankfully, I eliminated everything else!

How Do You Guess Connections Groups?

There is no quick, reliable way to approach Connections like there is with Wordle, since Connections isn’t algorithmic. However, there are a few things to keep in mind that can help.

1. Look for similar parts of speech. Are some words verbs and others nouns? Are some adjectives? Try mentally grouping them based on those categories and see if any other patterns jump out at you.
2. Are the words synonyms? Sometimes categories will just be synonyms for a phrase, or very close to synonyms. Don’t rely too closely on this, though. Occasionally, Connections will deliberately throw in words that are sometimes synonyms to mislead you.
3. Try saying the words. Sometimes, saying the words helps. One puzzle we saw included the words go, rate, faster, clip, pace, speed, move, commute, and hurry—all of which are obviously related to the idea of motion. However, when you say them, it becomes a little more obvious that only four (go, move, hurry, faster) are things you’d actually say to prompt someone to get moving.
4. Expect the red herring. Connections usually has words that could be plausibly, yet incorrectly, grouped together. Take the words Bud, Corona, and Light, as an example. You might instinctively see those three words together and assume they’re lumped together in a category related to beer—but they weren’t.
5. Look for distinct words. If a word on your board doesn’t have multiple meanings or can really only be used in one context, try using that word as the basis for a category.
6. Shuffle the board. Sometimes, moving words around will help you look at them in new ways.

If you didn’t solve this one, don’t feel too bad—there’s always tomorrow! And those words may align with a topic you’re interested in, giving you a leg up on the competition.