Note : Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today via my author page .

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.

If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord . I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.

I’m going to assume that you’ve already beaten today’s game. We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning .

Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Wednesday, August 12:

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

FEATURED | Frase By Forbes ™

Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase

🟨 hold onto, as a feeling (FOSTER, HARBOR, MAINTAIN, NURSE)

Straightforward enough. To FOSTER/HARBOR/MAINTAIN/NURSE a feeling means to try to sustain that feeling or emotion for longer than might be natural.

Connections – Green Group

🟩 kinds of frogs (BULL, GREEN, POISON DART, TREE)

The BULLfrog is a large species that’s considered to be invasive in many parts of the world:

Like that species, the GREEN frog is native to the eastern part of North America:

The POISON DART frog is so cool. Its toxicity level is based on its diet and it’s typically very colorful so as to warn off would-be predators:

A TREE frog, meanwhile, is any frog that spends most of its time in trees. Wonder how that designation got its name?

🟦 NBC sitcom surnames (BENES, BING, LEMON, SCOTT)

A tough group if you are not familiar with any of the shows being referenced here. I’ve never watched Seinfeld , so I didn’t know that BENES is the surname of one of the show’s main characters, Elaine.

  • BING > Chandler Bing, Friends
  • LEMON > Liz Lemon, 30 Rock
  • SCOTT > Michael Scott, The Office

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 starting with affirmative responses (FINE PRINT, GOODBYE, GREAT WHITE, OKAYAMA)

  • FINE PRINT > fine
  • GOODBYE > good
  • GREAT WHITE > great
  • OKAYAMA > okay

Connections – Red Herrings

The red herring today also had to do with animals. BULL, GREAT WHITE, LEMON and NURSE are all types of shark.

If you’d like to chat about today’s game of Connections and just about anything else with me and a very lovely group of people, you can do just that in our Discord community . We’d love for you to hang out with us.

I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers tomorrow, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes .