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Today's NYT Connections hints and answers for Wed, December 4th

Need some Connections hints today? Read our guide for help with Connections #541

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

Looking for a hint to help with today's Connections puzzle on 4th December? Another day, another Connections challenge. Read on, as we've broken the day's word groups apart and presented handy tips for each.

Connections is a word puzzle game published every day by the New York Times (NYT), the hosts of the endlessly popular Wordle puzzle. Crafted each day by 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.

It's a simple premise, but as many of us here know, Connections can be devilishly difficult at times, filled to the brim with red herrings, misleading words, and little-known trivia. If you're struggling to solve today's Connections puzzle, this guide will help you to find the answers for Wednesday, 4th December 2024.

Below we offer some carefully crafted hints and clues for today's Connections, and after that we reveal the four different groups, and finally the Connections answers themselves for those who are tired of wondering how it all fits together.

In this guide:

Connections hints for Wednesday 4th December

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

Our Connections hints for today are:

  • Yellow (Easiest): Something you would do as the head of a group.
  • Green (Easy): These items are pointy in different ways.
  • Blue (Medium): The stuff of legend.
  • Purple (Hardest): Chop them in half, and you get the place for a number two.
  • Extra hint 1: A captain would feel right at home in the yellow group.
  • Extra hint 2: A very, very old Greek person would have no trouble with this one.

If you're looking for more Connections hints today to help narrow down the answers, tap the spoiler text below to reveal one word belonging to each group:

Yellow (Easiest):

Guide

Green (Easy):

Sewing kit

Blue (Medium):

Helen

Purple (Hardest):

Loofah

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

What are today's Connections words?

Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

Pan Pine Tree Lead Candle
Compass Loofah Turntable Shepherd
Atlas Toiletries Echo Guide
Sewing Kit Helen Direct Johnson

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:

  • Steer
  • Things With Needle(s)
  • Figures In Greek Myth
  • Starting With Synonyms For Lavatory

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!

What are today's Connections answers?

Here are the full answers to today's Connections puzzle on Wednesday, 4th December:

  • Steer: Direct, Guide, Lead, Shepherd
  • Things With Needle(s): Compass, Pine Tree, Sewing Kit, Turntable
  • Figures In Greek Myth: Atlas, Echo, Helen, Pan
  • Starting With Synonyms For Lavatory: Candle, Loofah, Johnson, Toiletries

Today's Connections puzzle was as easy as it was difficult. The 'steering' words were quite clearly connected and the Greek mythology is obvious as long as you're familiar with the names... But nobody would blame you for not seeing the 'loo' in loofah.

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 one of the most popular 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 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 Wednesday 4th 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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