NYT Connections hint and answers for Thursday, 23rd Jan
Need some Connections hints for today? Read our guide for help with Connections #591.
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 Thursday, 23rd January? In between obscure word relationships and American trivia, Connections puzzles are truly tricky things, and one has to wonder how the good folks over at The New York Times manage to come up with these headscratchers.
But there's only so much wondering one can do before it's time to actually solve these challenges. That's where we come into play. The following guide has everything you need to know to crack the code to today's Connections.
In this guide:
- How to play Connections
- Connections hint for Thursday 23rd 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:
Better | Blanket | Satchel | Pagan |
Widen | Cooler | Whip | Smarter |
Basket | Eclipse | Bomber | Utensils |
Top | Fedora | Surpass | Vixen |
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 Thursday 23rd January
Here are your Connections hints for today:
- Yellow: Various ways of saying you're greater than someone else.
- Green: When you want to eat food in the park, you might bring these implements.
- Blue: A certain archaeologist wears these.
- Purple: Think of famous U.S. presidents. Now think of rhymes.
- Extra hint 1: Pagan and Vixen are in the same group.
- Extra hint 2: Bomber refers to the jacket.
If you need a bit more help, tap the spoiler text below to reveal one word belonging to each group:
- Yellow: Top
- Green: Cooler
- Blue: Satchel
- Purple: Pagan
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: Outdo
- Green: Picnic Accessories
- Blue: Parts Of An Indiana Jones Costume
- Purple: Rhymes Of U.S. President Names
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 Thursday, 23rd January:
- Yellow: Outdo (Better, Eclipse, Surpass, Top)
- Green: Picnic Accessories (Basket, Blanket, Cooler, Utensils)
- Blue: Parts Of An Indiana Jones Costume (Bomber, Fedora, Satchel, Whip)
- Purple: Rhymes Of U.S. President Names (Pagan, Smarter, Vixen, Widen)

I'd say that today's Connections is of moderate to high difficulty. There are a number of confusables here, starting with the Yellow group. 'Eclipse' makes me think of the moon, for instance, but we're talking about a verb here instead of a noun. The same goes for 'Top.' It took me a while to puzzle through all of the possibilities - never a great sign when it comes to the supposedly easy Yellow group!
Figuring out picnic accessories and Indiana Jones costume parts (love those films) was considerably easier. But deciphering the names of US presidents and the very specific rhymes that go along with their names was painful. I hope the hints I provided above helped save you some pain, because despite having grown up in America, I was at a total loss here.
In case you're wondering which word corresponds to which president, we've got 'Pagan' Ronald Reagan, 'Smarter' Jimmy Carter, 'Vixen' Richard Nixen, and 'Widen' Joe Biden. What a swell bunch of guys.
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!