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 Thursday, September 10

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 chemical elements (ACTINIUM, KRYPTON, LEAD, SULFUR)

The category title takes care of things for us here.

Connections – Green Group

🟩 what you might see sticking out of a window (AIR CONDITIONER, CATIO, CLOTHESLINE, FLOWER BOX)

An AIR CONDITIONER unit generally has to connect to the exterior of a building so it can cycle hot air out and cool air as it enters the space.

CATIO is a portmanteau of “cat” and “patio.” It’s an enclosure for cats that primarily remain indoors. It can also be called a cat enclosure, cat cage, cat run or catservatory (not a fan of that last one!):

Buildings that are close together might have CLOTHESLINEs hanging between them so residents can hang their laundry out to dry.

A FLOWER BOX is a box in which people grow flowers.

🟦 Bruce Springsteen classics (ATLANTIC CITY, BADLANDS, BORN TO RUN, THUNDER ROAD)

Straightforward enough, but in case you’re unfamiliar with these four fantastic songs (or just want to hear them again), here you go:

THUNDER ROAD (a live version, just so you can hear just how fantastic Springsteen and The E Street Band are in that setting):

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 ending in synonyms for “happening now” (ADULT CONTEMPORARY, ALTERNATING CURRENT, REPRESENT, SEXTANT)

  • ADULT CONTEMPORARY > contemporary
  • ALTERNATING CURRENT > current
  • REPRESENT > present
  • SEXTANT > extant

Connections – Red Herrings

There are multiple terms in today’s game that "AC" might refer to. Those include ACTINIUM (for which Ac is the chemical symbol), AIR CONDITIONER, ATLANTIC CITY, ADULT CONTEMPORARY and ALTERNATING CURRENT.

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 .