If you are hoping to finish today’sConnectionspuzzle quickly, you will want to embark on a quest to find some hints sooner rather than later. This puzzle was not overly difficult, but as usual,there are tricky spots no matter the ease of the puzzle. With the right hints about what is going on in the puzzle, you can navigate any tricky spots and overcome the difficulties without growing frustrated. It is often nerve-wracking when you are on the last guess and have more than one category to go, but these hints can help you avoid that.
If you want to play a more complex and involved game,The Password Gamepuzzlewill have you create a new password that is unbreakable.This will be done by giving you 15 different mini-puzzlesthat you will have to solve and put together, adhering to each one at the same time, until you have a series of letters, numbers, and characters that no one will be able to untangle.
Today’s Connections Category Hints
JANUARY 16 #585
This puzzle has a lot of different words, and some of them don’t have similar meaningsbut are connected in different ways. That always makes it a little harder to guess what words belong in the different categories. However, a little bit of context goes a long way, and that is exactly what these clues are going to give you. Sometimes all it takes is the right nudge, which is what these clues are meant to do:
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If you still need more to go on,the category namesare sure to give you a bigger nudge toward the end of the puzzle. If you want to skip that and go for the answers straight away, you can keep scrolling.
BUYING AND SELLING
___RAT
MARKET
TRADE
This category felt the most obvious today, as all of these are fairly common and used to describe exactly what the category says nearly every day. They also all mean close to the same thing, making it easier to guess that they go together.Sometimes I get a little too zeroed in on a different category, so I don’t see the obvious one, which is one of the ways you might get tripped up on a category like this. It is nice when the easy category does actually feel easy because that also isn’t always the case, so it is pleasant when it does happen.
SCONCE
SWITCH
This one could be more difficult, as you may not be sure what these all have in common. If it was just things found in a house, RUG or PLANT might belong here just as well.Three of them involve electricity, but BASEBOARD does not, so it is not a guarantee that you would get it based on that either. To me, this feels a little harder than the next category, as it usually does when the words don’t have a similar meaning but are connected by another means. I suppose it depends on how easy it is for you to recognize that these are in the same place.
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MOLE
PLANT
This one feels a little easier,as these words all mean very similar things. While MOLE and PLANT could be tricky, as that is not their primary definition, I think spies and spy movies are popular enough that most people would be somewhat familiar with those words in this context. While that may not be the case, it is possible and it feels a little easier. I also don’t believe there are many other things that could be mistaken for being in this category.
PACK
RAT
This one is hard, as MOLE could belong here and that could throw you off. Depending on the order you solve each category, you might not know that “spy” is an option,and it would be weird to not put MOLE here if you recognized that there were different types of rats in here. Figuring it out might be hard, and it did take me a moment to separate them out as I did recognize this one early. It’s the one disadvantage of figuring out the hardest category earlier than the game intends.
Other Games Like Connections
If you feel the desire to keep on gaming, you shouldcheck out the following puzzlesin the box below.
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Wordle(NYT)
Solve a random five-letter word by using color clues.EveryWordleanswercan be found in our daily updated list.
Yes
Hello Wordl
Very similar toWordle, where players change the number of letters in the word.
The Password Game
Create a password in this ever-changing, not-so-simple game. You can find somehelpful tips in ourPassword Gameguide.
Worldle
Name a country based only on its silhouette, and a few geographical hints.
