NYT Connections hints and answers for Mon, December 9th
Need some Connections hints? Read our guide for help with Connections #546.
This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's solution? Check out the Connections hint for Wednesday 15th January!
Looking for a hint to help with today's Connections puzzle on 9th December? Don't fret if today's Connections puzzle has you stumped. We've got a list of tips below, plus the answers themselves.
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 Monday, 9th December 2024.
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 Monday 9th December
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): If you want to know if an action is justified, you can use this.
- Green (Easy): Essential survival gear.
- Blue (Medium): Use them to see even the tiniest creatures.
- Purple (Hardest): You can make these words longer... With just one letter.
- Extra hint 1: Magnifying glass and microscope do not belong to the same group.
- Extra hint 2: To find the purple group, you'll need one of the last letters of the alphabet.
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):
Reflection
Green (Easy):
Flint
Blue (Medium):
Stain
Purple (Hardest):
Factor
What are today's Connections words?
Here are the 16 Connections words for today:
| Ray | Factor | Lighter | Stain |
| Microscope | Games | Consideration | Magnifying Glass |
| Reflection | Matches | Slide | Thought |
| Flint | Files | Scrutiny | Specimen |
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:
- Deliberation
- Used In Starting A Fire
- Used To View A Biological Sample
- Words After “X”
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 Monday, 9th December:
- Deliberation: Consideration, Reflection, Scrutiny, Thought
- Used In Starting A Fire: Flint, Lighter, Magnifying Glass, Matches
- Used To View A Biological Sample: Microscope, Slide, Specimen, Stain
- Words After “X”: Factor, Files, Games, Ray
Putting magnifying glass and microscope in the same puzzle, but not the same group - now that is just mean. Once you find the fiery connection in the green group though, this Connections puzzle is certainly doable. It'll help if you're an X-Files or X-Factor fan too.
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 Wednesday 15th 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!