NYT Connections hints and answers for Thu, January 2nd
Need some Connections hints today? Read our guide for help with Connections #570.
This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's solution? Check out the Connections hint for Sunday 12th January!
Looking for a hint to help with today's Connections puzzle on 2nd January? Don't let a tricky Connections puzzle get you down; with some help from this handy guide, you will certainly find the solution.
Connections is a word puzzle game published every day by the New York Times (NYT), the hosts of the endlessly popular Wordle puzzle. Crafted each day by puzzle-maker Wyna Liu, Connections presents you with a selection of 16 seemingly disparate words, and you have to group them together in four sets of four, where each group of four words has a common theme.
It's a simple premise, but as many of us here know, Connections can be devilishly difficult at times, filled to the brim with red herrings, misleading words, and little-known trivia. If you're struggling to solve today's Connections puzzle, this guide will help you to find the answers for Thursday, 2nd January 2025.
Below we offer some carefully crafted hints and clues for today's Connections, and after that we reveal the four different groups, and finally the Connections answers themselves for those who are tired of wondering how it all fits together.
In this guide:
Connections hints for Thursday 2nd January
Here's a hint for each of the word groups in today's Connections puzzle, plus a couple more Connections clues to help you find the answer.
Our Connections hints for today are:
- Yellow (Easiest): "Got it!"
- Green (Easy): A musician would know this one.
- Blue (Medium): Each word is connected to the same number.
- Purple (Hardest): This one has something to do with a four-legged friend.
- Extra hint 1: Think of a word you can place in front of each of the purple group's words.
- Extra hint 2: 'Time' and 'clock' belong to different groups!
If you're looking for more Connections hints today to help narrow down the answers, tap the spoiler text below to reveal one word belonging to each group:
Yellow (Easiest):
Catch
Green (Easy):
Meter
Blue (Medium):
Donut
Purple (Hardest):
Tag
What are today's Connections words?
Here are the 16 Connections words for today:
| Time | Clock | Donut | Paddle |
| Tired | Month | Beat | Register |
| Catch | Tag | Inch | Days |
| Meter | Juror | Notice | Rhythm |
What are today's Connections groups?
If you need an even bigger clue to figure out today's Connections puzzle, below we'll reveal the four correct Connections groups - the themes which link together each set of four words in the Connections grid.
Here are the Connections groups for today:
- Perceive
- Cadence
- One In A Group Of Twelve
- Dog ___
Now that you know the themes for the various different Connections in today's puzzle, see if you can solve it! If not, check just below for the full answer.
Spoiler warning! Today's Connections answer lies ahead!
What are today's Connections answers?
Here are the full answers to today's Connections puzzle on Thursday, 2nd January:
- Perceive: Catch, Clock, Notice, Register
- Cadence: Beat, Meter, Rhythm, Time
- One In A Group Of Twelve: Donut, Inch, Juror, Month
- Dog ___: Days, Paddle, Tag, Tired
There were many false connections in today's puzzle, the most obvious one being 'time' and 'clock'. It got a lot easier once I selected the 'cadence' group, but this certainly wasn't the easiest Connections puzzle of late. I'm dog-tired now!
Congratulations if you got today's Connections answer right, with or without the help of our handy hints above! And if you didn't succeed today, don't worry - a new Connections puzzle is released every day at midnight, so you can try again tomorrow, just like with Wordle.
What is Connections?
Connections is one of the most popular daily puzzle games published by the New York Times (owners of Wordle). The aim of Connections is to group the 16 words of the day into four groups, where each group of four words has a common theme.
For instance, the words "Hook", "Nana", "Peter", and "Wendy" are all Peter Pan characters. Or to take another example, "Action", "Ballpark", "Go", and "Stick" are all words which commonly come just before the word "Figure".
Your job is to figure out what these themes are that connect the various words together - but be wary, because a lot of the time there are red herring connections placed in there deliberately to throw you off! To win the game, you have to find all four Connections without making 4 mistakes. On your fourth mistake, the game is over and the answer is revealed automatically.
Each of the four groups in each day's Connections puzzle is also assigned a different colour, which represents how easy or difficult the Connection is to find. These colours are: Yellow (Easiest), Green (Easy), Blue (Medium), and Purple (Hardest).
That wraps up today's guide on how to solve the NYT Connections word puzzle. If you're looking for help with Wordle, we've also got you covered with our list of past Wordle answers, as well as the Wordle hint and answer for Monday 13th January. You can also check out our list of the best starting words for Wordle, or use our Wordle Solver tool to help you find the answer with ease!