NYT ‘Connections’ Hints For Monday, August 11: Today’s Clues And Answers
Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today’s Connections hints and answers, here are Sunday’s:
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the start of a new week! I hope you’re well rested and raring to go – or maybe even getting ready to relax if you don’t have the typical 9-5 schedule and Monday is one of your days off.
As you may know by now (or if not, welcome!), I like to get things started on Monday editions of this column with a fun, upbeat song. The idea is to hopefully get your grooving a little and lift your spirits.
I went to a festival last Sunday and had a great time. The first artist I saw when I got there was Marina (formerly Marina and the Diamonds) and I really enjoyed her set. “Butterfly” is one of my favorites of hers. It takes a minute to get going, I’d say, but that beat in the chorus is pretty great. I hope you dig it too:
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to hang out with us.
Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, August 11 are coming right up.
How To Play Connections
Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT’s website or Games app.
You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.
There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.
Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.
If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.
If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.
Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find our hints Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.
What Are Today’s Connections Hints?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.
Today’s 16 words are…
- MATTER
- VANILLA
- DESERT
- PLAIN
- COUNT
- HORSE
- CHOCOLATE
- VOLUME
- STRAND
- AGES
- WEIGHT
- DUMP
- MEASURE
- STANDARD
- MAROON
- NORMAL
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — nothing much different here
- 🟩 Green group — leave it alone
- 🟦 Blue group — they tell you more about what’s inside
- 🟪 Purple group — side, room and space would all fit in here
One Word For Each Connections Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one word for each group.
Today’s Connections word hints are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — STANDARD
- 🟩 Green group — STRAND
- 🟦 Blue group — COUNT
- 🟪 Purple group — CHOCOLATE
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — ordinary
- 🟩 Green group — abandon
- 🟦 Blue group — specs on consumer packaging
- 🟪 Purple group — dark _____
What Are Today’s Connections Answers?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — ordinary (NORMAL, PLAIN, STANDARD, VANILLA)
- 🟩 Green group — abandon (DESERT, DUMP, MAROON, STRAND)
- 🟦 Blue group — specs on consumer packaging (COUNT, MEASURE, VOLUME, WEIGHT)
- 🟪 Purple group — dark _____ (AGES, CHOCOLATE, HORSE, MATTER)
CHOCOLATE (yum) seemed like a natural fit with PLAIN and VANILLA but alas, there wasn’t another flavor of, say, yogurt, on the board. PLAIN and VANILLA did go together, however, with the rest of the yellows. Don’t be ordinary, gang. Be weird and you’ll have more fun.
I was surprised that the blues were blues and not greens, since those seemed exceedingly obvious to me. With only half the grid left, the greens became very clear too (especially considering that DESERT and dessert are two very different things). So, of course I had to slide through the purples first.
I’ll be honest, I’m a little frazzled, so I didn’t take the time to try to figure out the connection there. I probably would have gotten it, though, if I’d given it more than a split second of thought. A dark HORSE is an underdog or other participant that rises to prominence in a given situation, such as an team that seems to come out of nowhere to win a tournament or competition (such as Leicester City shocking the world by winning the Premier League in the 2015-16 season).
Anyway! After that, I sent through the greens for a 164th win on the trot, and with a perfect game to boot. Here’s my grid for today:
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Tuesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Ren is such a wonderful artist. Before he blew up through his solo work, he was a member of a busking band called The Big Push. They did some pretty fantastic covers, and a video of this one (which was recorded a few years ago) recently popped up on YouTube.
I’d never heard a cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” by way of The Libertines or The Strokes before. This is absolutely terrific (though I should point out there’s a swear, like, 1.5 seconds into this video):
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.