Friday, October 4
Todays NYT Connections Hints and Answer for Saturday November 4

Today’s NYT Connections Hints (and Answer) for Saturday, November 4, 2023


It’s an all-noun puzzle today, or at least it looks that way until you STUDY the words closely. If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Saturday, November 4, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for November 4, NYT Connections #146! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.

If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.

Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

NYT Connections board for November 4, 2023: TRAIN, STRAW, TICKET, ROPE, STUDY, BIKE, TUBE, SPORTS, KNIFE, CIGARETTE, PIPE, DRILL, WRENCH, HOSE, PRACTICE, CANDLESTICK.

Screenshot: Connections/NYT


There’s a category based on a game; if you don’t know the game, you won’t pick out which items belong in this category. (The game also inspired a movie, if that helps.)

Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:

  • Yellow category – Get ready.
  • Green category – According to topologists, these are all the same as a coffee cup (or a donut).
  • Blue category – It’s not like you’d commit a real murder with these.
  • Purple category – What’s with this newfangled technology?!

The purple is sort of a fill-in-the-blank.

Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.


We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)

  • A DRILL, WRENCH, and HOSE might all be tools you’d pick up at a hardware store, but they are all in different categories today (and none is a category about tools).
  • STRAW can refer to dried-out plant stalks, but here you want to think of a drinking STRAW.
  • A TRAIN can be a long tail on a dress, a series of cars dragged behind a locomotive, or a verb referring to how one prepares for a challenge (as in a TRAINing montage).

If those hints weren’t enough to help you get all the categories, let me give you one more Clue

Clue (1985) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]

  • Yellow: WAYS TO PREPARE
  • Green: HOLLOW CYLINDERS
  • Blue: WEAPONS IN THE GAME CLUE
  • Purple: “E-” THINGS

Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.

The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is WAYS TO PREPARE and the words are: DRILL, PRACTICE, STUDY, TRAIN.

The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is HOLLOW CYLINDERS and the words are: HOSE, PIPE, STRAW, TUBE.

The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is WEAPONS IN THE GAME CLUE and the words are: CANDLESTICK, KNIFE, ROPE, WRENCH.

The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is “E-” THINGS and the words are: e-CIGARETTE (a nicotine vape), e-BIKE (a bicycle with an electric motor), e-SPORTS (competitive video games) and e-TICKETS (what we all use to get our boarding passes these days).

I had to start with the Clue weapons: KNIFE, WRENCH, CANDLESTICK, ROPE. 🟦

Next I thought about TRAINing at SPORTS PRACTICE; take out SPORTS and we have four words about doing a thing over and over to help it stick. You can TRAIN, PRACTICE, DRILL, or STUDY. 🟨

A STRAW, HOSE, PIPE, and TUBE are all the same thing, just different materials and sizes. 🟩 I don’t know, today the categories are just jumping out at me.

Finally we have SPORTS, TICKET, CIGARETTE, and BIKE, and I realize you could put an “e” in front of each of these. 🟪

Connections 
Puzzle #146
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🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪

I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:

First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Crossword app. You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).

Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.

You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.

The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.

If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.

Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!



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