NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, August 16

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the weekend!

We’re just a few days away from the 800th edition of Connections, which is truly wild. I’m hoping it will be a special game, with some kind of gimmick going on. Not only are those grids fun, they’re generally more difficult too. That means more people going to read the hints column, which in turn puts a little extra cash in my pocket. Just being honest! We’ll see how it all shakes out on Tuesday.

Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to join us.

Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Saturday, August 16 are coming right up.

What Are Today’s Connections Hints?

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

• TISSUE

• WORK

• PLUCK

• CONSTRUCTION

• CRUSH

• CREPE

• CREAM

• RESOLVE

• ROLLING

• REPAIRS

• SHELLAC

• TOILET

• GRIT

• ROUT

• UPGRADES

• FORTITUDE

The level one hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• 🟨 Yellow group — nerve, intestinal fortitude and mettle would work here

• 🟩 Green group — time for a new look?

• 🟦 Blue group — a very easy win

• 🟪 Purple group — careful! These can be pretty delicate

One Word For Each Connections Group

Be warned: we’re really starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

• 🟨 Yellow group — PLUCK

• 🟩 Green group — WORK

• 🟦 Blue group — CREAM

• 🟪 Purple group — CREPE

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Need some extra help?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — intrepidity

• 🟩 Green group — renovations

• 🟦 Blue group — trounce

• 🟪 Purple group — kinds of soft/lightweight paper

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — intrepidity (FORTITUDE, GRIT, PLUCK, RESOLVE)

• 🟩 Green group — renovations (CONSTRUCTION, REPAIRS, UPGRADES, WORK)

• 🟦 Blue group — trounce (CREAM, CRUSH, ROUT, SHELLAC)

• 🟪 Purple group — kinds of soft/lightweight paper (CREPE, ROLLING, TISSUE, TOILET)

My first instinct was that FORTITUDE and SHELLAC might go together, as in "fort" and "shell" as a group of words that start with a form of protection. Nothing else quite made sense with those, though, so I forgot about that idea.

More so when I realized that FORTITUDE went with the rest of the yellows. I was way off base with my initial thought! (Fun fact, I just found out that I have a lot of trouble pronouncing "intrepidity.") The greens were pretty easy to spot too.

From there, I saw that CRUSH, ROUT and CREAM (as in to defeat soundly) were perfect bedfellows. It took me a moment of looking at the remaining words to see what might be the best fit. TOILET, TISSUE and CREPE all seemed like kinds of paper. I really wasn't sure how SHELLAC fit in here (I hadn't heard of it in either context), so I took a gamble and it paid off.

In hindsight, that wasn't a very difficult purple group? I'd maybe even swap the purple and blue difficulty here.

In any case, a second regular rainbow in a row extends my overall streak to 169 glorious victories. Here's my grid for today:

🟨🟨🟨🟨 
🟩🟩🟩🟩 
🟦🟦🟦🟦 
🟪🟪🟪🟪

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter for hints and the solution for Sunday’s game if you need them.

P.S. My YouTube algorithm surfaced this video for me recently. I thought it was pretty compelling and worth sharing with you all.

I already was aware of many of these ideas (the notion of everything coming back to the mean squares with my mantra of "this too shall pass," for instance). Still, I figured that it might help some of you out there as well. It's a good reminder that I need to sleep more too.

One particular idea here that did stick with me was that "if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room." I've long tried to have the mindset that in any given situation, I'm the least intelligent person there. That's not always going to be true, of course, but my reasoning for thinking that way is that you can learn at least one new thing from every single other person. Thinking you're smarter than everyone else (not that I would in any case) isn't going to help with that.

One last thing — the algorithm also suggested a video from this same creator that's called "Give Me 11 Minutes and I’ll Solve Your Procrastination." That tab has been open, waiting for me to watch the video, for an entire week. Oooooops:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

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