NYT Connections hint today and answers for Tuesday, 14th Jan
Need some Connections hints for today? Read our guide for help with Connections #582.
This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's? Check out the Connections hint for Friday 14th February!
Need a hint for today's Connections on Tuesday, 14th January? If you're anything like me, you're confounded by Connections on a regular basis. So many words to choose from! So many obscure links to figure out!
Thankfully, you can benefit from the headscratching that I must endure to figure out these stumpers. Whether you're wondering which word goes in the Yellow, Green, Blue, or Purple group, or simply want a gentle tip to point you in the right direction, you're in the right place. Read on for the full rundown on today's Connections puzzle, including my own experiences solving it.
In this guide:
- How to play Connections
- Connections hint for Tuesday 14th January
- What are today's Connections words?
- What are today's Connections groups?
- What are today's Connections answers?
Here are the 16 Connections words for today:
Working | Session | Body | Crowd |
Puffing | Running | Swank | Flash |
Sitting | Active | Gully | Period |
Strap | Meeting | Functional | Lens |
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).
Connections hint for Tuesday 14th January
Here are your Connections hints for today:
- Yellow: These are different ways to describe something that's turned on.
- Green: Different ways to describe a stretch of time, especially in a school or work setting.
- Blue: You'll find these on a tool that takes photos.
- Purple: Think of flying animals plus one extra letter.
- Extra hint 1: Period does not refer to the full stop at the end of a sentence.
- Extra hint 2: Gully and Swank 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: Active
- Green: Period
- Blue: Strap
- Purple: Swank
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: Operating
- Green: Term
- Blue: Things In A Camera Kit
- Purple: Bird Plus Letter
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, 14th January:
- Yellow: Operating (Active, Functional, Running, Working)
- Green: Term (Meeting, Period, Session, Sitting)
- Blue: Things In A Camera Kit (Body, Flash, Lens, Strap)
- Purple: Bird Plus Letter (Crowd, Gully, Puffing, Swank)

Today's Connections puzzle is a fairly standard one, with the Yellow, Green, and Blue words all linking together in my head without too much difficulty.
I did get thrown for a bit by 'Body,' a word that I don't immediately associate with the body of a camera, but it was easy enough to find the connection there once I'd honed in on 'Lens' and 'Strap.' Chalk it up to actually handling a camera kit back in my journalism school days; if I were one of those folks who'd only used their mobile to take pictures, I would've been lost.
As is often the case with these puzzles, the Purple group gave me the most difficulty. Discerning the names of birds is one thing, but realising that an extra letter has been covertly added to all of these fowl is another! I initially thought that 'Crowd' belonged with 'Meeting' and 'Sitting' before my brain gravitated towards crows instead of groups of people.
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!