Another Sunday and another tricky NYT Connections to solve. If you’re looking for help with today’s puzzling NYT Connections puzzle, this guide is here to help with some extra clues and every connection for the Yellow, Blue, Green and Purple groups.

It’s the first Sunday of October so happy October Connectioneers, and happy Autumn! It’s almost Halloween. Crazy.

As always, be sure to also check out my friendly neighborhood streaming guide for some really good TV show and movie recommendations. The days are getting chillier, so you might as well Netflix and chill.

If you’re looking for Saturday’s Connections guide, it’s right here . You can play today’s Connections here .

NYT Connections Hints And Answers – Sunday, August 23

Below, we’ll get into some extra hints for each Connections group – Yellow, Blue, Green and Purple – and then the official clues and answers.

Here are today’s Connections words:

  • peruse
  • cable
  • map
  • wield
  • syntactic
  • phone
  • gloves
  • harness
  • employ
  • internet
  • registration
  • utilize
  • patrick
  • electricity
  • ice scraper
  • apply

Here’s an Extra Hint for Each Connections Group

  • 🟡 Yellow group – When you do something with something, aka “tap into the power of the sun” or “heft an axe.”
  • 🟢 Green group – Utilities, etc.
  • 🔵 Blue group – You’ll keep these in your car.
  • 🟣 Purple group – Inside the end of these words are other words that mean “to dupe” or “deceive” or “overcome using strategy” etc.

One Word for Each Connections Group:

  • 🟡 Yellow group – harness
  • 🟢 Green group – electricity
  • 🔵 Blue group – map
  • 🟣 Purple group – syntactic

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

  • Alright, the full spoilers follow here as we get into what the groups are today:
  • 🟡 Yellow group – Put To Use
  • 🟢 Green group – Monthly Bills
  • 🔵 Blue group – Things you might find in a glove compartment
  • 🟣 Purple group – Ending in Gambits

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

  • The full-on answers are below for each group, finally inserting the four words in each category. Spoilers follow . The Connections answers are:
  • 🟡 Yellow group – apply, harness, utilize, wield
  • 🟢 Green group – cable, electricity, internet, phone
  • 🔵 Blue group – gloves, ice scraper, map, registration
  • 🟣 Purple group – employ, patrick, peruse, syntactic

Here’s the finished puzzle in the order I solved it:

Today’s NYT Connections is a 4/5 on the Connections Bot difficulty scale with a 53% solve rate, which is the hardest one I’ve played in at least a couple months. It was tricky, and I got two guesses wrong trying to get the Yellow group put together. I tried APPLY / UTILIZE / WIELD and EMPLOY first, but that was wrong. I tried another combination and got it wrong again before getting HARNESS in there and EMPLOY out, though I feel like this is a bit unfair. EMPLOY works as “Put to Use” just fine. It’s not so much a red herring as a word that actually fits with all four words in Yellow.

Making this especially difficult is the fact that the Purple group is what really makes the Yellow group come together. Once you have EMPLOY (aka “ploy”) out and into Purple, only four words remain for Yellow. But that’s backwards in terms of difficulty.

There are other obstacles in our path. Red herrings like HARNESS / CABLE / GLOVES could all be part of rock climbing. PHONE could go into a glove compartment. Lots of tricks, but overall a fun puzzle!

How’d you do on today’s Connections? Let me know on Twitter , Instagram , or Facebook .s

The NYT Games App has launched new weekly puzzles that are special twists on games like Wordle and Connections. Read all about those right here and check out my interview with the head of NYT Games, Jonathan Knight, in the video below:

Find more guides to Wordle, Pips and Strands on my blog where you can also follow me for TV and movie and video game coverage. Let me know if you have any fun puzzle games in your rotation that I should try on Twitter , Instagram , or Facebook . Have a great Sunday!