NYT Connections Today: Hints and Answers for Friday, November 21, 2025

Connections is a free daily word game from The New York Times that challenges your pattern recognition and vocabulary skills. You can play it on the NYT's website or through their Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you gain access to the Connections archive, which includes every puzzle since the game launched.

The game presents you with a grid of 16 words (and sometimes phrases, symbols, or numbers). Your goal is to organize them into four groups of four items each. The challenge lies in figuring out what connects each group—the categories aren't revealed upfront, so you need to discover the patterns yourself.

There's only one correct solution, and the puzzle often includes red herrings designed to mislead you. You're allowed three incorrect guesses. Make a fourth wrong guess, and the game ends.

Each group is color-coded by difficulty. Typically, the yellow group is the easiest to identify, followed by green, blue, and finally purple as the most challenging. Often, yellow and green groups feature synonyms or straightforward categories, blue groups involve cultural references or specific knowledge, and purple groups typically include wordplay or more abstract connections. However, this isn't a strict rule—the NYT loves to throw curveballs to keep players on their toes.

Like Wordle and similar games, Connections makes it easy to share your results with friends using an emoji-based grid. The game also tracks your progress and win streak. Many dedicated players take pride in maintaining long win streaks or achieving a "reverse rainbow"—correctly guessing the purple, blue, green, and yellow groups in that exact order without any mistakes. This adds an extra layer of challenge for those seeking to master the game.

New to Connections? Check out our comprehensive how to play guide for detailed strategies, expert tips, and complete rules to improve your game. You can also visit our ConnectionsExplorer homepage to access all daily puzzles and solutions.