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NYT Connections hint and answers (Saturday, December 9)

Need a hint for today's Connections? Read our guide for help with Connections #181

The NYT Connections logo, layered on top of a screenshot of a Connections grid.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's solution? Check out the Connections hint and answers for Saturday 14th December!

Want a hint for Connections today? Piggybacking off the monumental success of daily puzzle game Wordle, the New York Times has another fantastically popular word game out now. It's called Connections, and if you haven't played it before, now's the time to start.

In this guide, we'll give you a handy hint selection for today's Connections puzzle on Saturday, December 9th, before revealing the group themes and the Connections answers themselves. We'll also explain how to play Connections if this is your first time coming over from Wordle!

Looking for an alternative to Wordle? Here are eight of our favourite Wordle-likes to add to your morning puzzle routine.Watch on YouTube

Connections words on Saturday, December 9

For reference, here are the 16 Connections words for today:

Nail Shake Rice Peanut
Note Float Palm Screw
Fingers Olive Bolt Split
Corn Rivet Wicket Sundae

Connections hint for December 9

Here's a hint for each of the word groups in today's Connections puzzle, plus a couple more clues to help you find the answer:

  • Yellow (Easiest): Think of different varieties of cold desserts.
  • Green (Easy): You'll use these when constructing furniture.
  • Blue (Medium): Add these to food for unique flavour.
  • Purple (Hardest): All of these can be combined with another word synonymous with "adhesive."
  • Extra hint 1: Aside from food, you could also add the Blue words to a saucepan.
  • Extra hint 2: "Rice" and "wicket" belong in the same group.

Connections groups for December 9

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:

  • Ice Cream Treats
  • Hardware Fasteners
  • Kinds Of Cooking Oil
  • Sticky ___

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!


The splash screen for Connections, a word game on the NYT website.
Image credit: NYT

What is the answer to Connections today (Saturday December 9)?

  • Ice Cream Treats: Float, Shake, Split, Sundae
  • Hardware Fasteners: Bolt, Nail, Rivet, Screw
  • Kinds Of Cooking Oil: Corn, Olive, Palm, Peanut
  • Sticky ___: Fingers, Note, Rice, Wicket

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 a word puzzle game published every day by the NYT, the hosts of the endlessly popular Wordle puzzle. Crafted each day by crossword 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.

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 Saturday 14th December. 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!

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