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 3:

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 two shakes of a lamb's tail (BLINK, FLASH, HEARTBEAT, TRICE)

These all refer to a brief moment in time or something that happens very quickly.

Connections – Green Group

🟩 shades of red (CARMINE, CINNABAR, MAROON, VERMILLION)

I can’t find images of each that I can use here, unfortunately. I will say that burgundy is probably my favorite shade of red. I love a dark red.

🟦 toy car brands (HOT WHEELS, MATCHBOX, MICRO MACHINES, TONKA)

The category title pretty much takes care of things for us here. I don’t think we need to go into detail about each toy car brand. It feels like an “if you know, you know” kind of situation, y’know?

I did really enjoy this video of a HOT WHEELS car taking a trip on an intricate track someone built in their backyard. I have to admit, I was tilting my head when the car turned the corners:

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 spreadsheet functions (AVERAGE, COUNT, MAX, SUM)

In a spreadsheet, the AVERAGE function calculates the mean of values in designated cells.

COUNT provides you with the total number of cells that include numbers in a given range.

The MAX function reveals the highest number based on a range of cells.

SUM adds together all of the values in certain cells.

Connections – Red Herrings

BLINK, MAROON, MATCHBOX and SUM all refer to bands with numbers at the end of their names. Here’s a song from each, just because I can do that here.

I really like two of those bands!

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 .