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NYT Connections hints and answers, Tuesday Feb 4

Need some Connections hints for today? Read our guide for help with Connections #603.

An abstract image with an altered Connections logo in the centre, surrounded by circles connected by webbed lines.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's? Check out the Connections hint for Thursday 13th February!

Need a hint for today's Connections on Tuesday, 4th February? Sixteen words, four common themes, and it's up to you to group them together. It sounds easy enough, but the NYT Connections puzzles are truly strenuous at times.

No worries though, we can help you out. This Connections guide will give you some hints as well as a few spoilers - pick whichever you want to use or take a look at all of them. Good luck!

In this guide:

Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

File Save Butter Chicken
Spread Sand Under Store
Lady Favorite Sticky Preserve
Keep Buff Parlay Grind

How to play Connections

Connections is one of the most popular (and challenging) 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 deceptive red herring connections placed purely 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).

Click here to play today's Connections puzzle!


Connections hint for Tuesday 4th February

Here are your Connections hints for today:

  • Yellow: This group will stand the test of time.
  • Green: These words can smoothen a rough surface.
  • Blue: Think about sports, winning, and money.
  • Purple: Think of a body part you can place behind these words.
  • Extra hint 1: Each group has at least one word that starts with an 's'.
  • Extra hint 2: 'Lady' and 'sticky' are in the same group.

If you need a bit more help, tap the spoiler text below to reveal one word belonging to each group:

  • Yellow: Preserve
  • Green: Buff
  • Blue: Under
  • Purple: Lady

Spoiler warning! Today's Connections groups are revealed just below!

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:

  • Yellow: Conserve
  • Green: Smooth Using Friction
  • Blue: Sports Gambling Terms
  • Purple: Words Before "Fingers"

Now that you know the themes for the various different Connections in today's puzzle, see if you can solve it! If not, check below for the full answer.


Spoiler warning! Today's Connections answer lies ahead!

What is today's Connections answer?

Here is the answer to today's Connections puzzle on Tuesday, 4th February:

  • Yellow: Conserve (Keep, Preserve, Save, Store)
  • Green: Smooth Using Friction (Buff, File, Grind, Sand)
  • Blue: Sports Gambling Terms (Favorite, Parlay, Spread, Under)
  • Purple: Words Before "Fingers" (Butter, Chicken, Lady, Sticky)
A screenshot showing the Connections answers on February 4, 2025.
Here are the February 4 Connections answers. | Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT

Today's blue category was out to get me - seriously, can anyone not familiar with sports gambling terms guess that one? I couldn't, but luckily, the other three groups were manageable, leaving only the blue words in the end. Good thing we really only need to guess three categories to solve a Connections puzzle.

As the words clearly share the same meaning, the first group I got was yellow, followed by the green category shortly after. The only word in that group that seems a bit more troublesome is 'buff', as I would expect people to associate it with a muscular physique rather than polishing a surface. I hope you were able to arrive at this secondary meaning as well!

Truthfully, finding the purple category took me a while. It's one of those 'obvious once you see it' categories, but you must wait for your brain to present you with that one particular word you need - 'fingers', in this case. For me, the most helpful word in this group was 'chicken', and then I saw the fingers connection to 'sticky', 'butter', and eventually 'lady' as well.

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!

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