NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, December 14

Such a cute elephant calf, omg. 🥹

Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far.

I mentioned the other day that I enjoyed The New Yorker at 100, a Netflix documentary about said magazine. One aspect of the film in particular really stuck with me. I found it quite inspiring.

Kelefa Sanneh started his career as a music critic and spent eight years at The New York Times. When he moved to The New Yorker in 2008, he wasn’t assigned a particular focus and was told that “We think you could write some interesting stories for us.” Sanneh, a staff writer for the publication, has gone on to write about boxing, a review of a John Lewis biography, fashion, Ronda Rousey, proper whisky, Christian nationalism, gentrification and many other topics.

“My only job is to be interesting,” Sanneh said in the documentary, adding that the magazine has “a curious readership that’s willing to go where you take them. The story could be about anything. Part of the bargain with the reader is ‘I’m gonna make this fun, so stick with me.’”

That’s exactly the kind of audience and feeling I want to cultivate at Pastimes in the long run. Sure, I don’t have the name recognition of a 100-year-old magazine behind me. I have pet topics I keep coming back to as well.

But I am a creature of curiosity. I am always eager to learn about new things and topics I haven’t delved into before. I enjoy sharing what I learn too. And I like to think I’m a pretty decent writer, now that I’ve found a heart-on-sleeve style that I’m comfortable with and fairly adept at.

I wish I had the time and energy to explore and write about many more of the weird, fascinating elements that make up our world and the universe. I’m sure I’ll find that bandwidth at some point. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

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 Sunday, December 14 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...

• DUCKLING

• COLONEL

• NAPOLEON

• PRINCESS

• CALF

• PIGLET

• EMPEROR

• FAWN

• GUSH

• MERMAID

• CHALK

• PORKY

• PRAISE

• WOULD

• BABE

• FLATTER

And the level one hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• 🟨 Yellow group — butter someone up

• 🟩 Green group — borne from a 19th-century Danish literary icon's brain

• 🟦 Blue group — talk the talk and walk the walk, and you could earn some salmon

• 🟪 Purple group — if you like ganon and wilbur, they might put some peppa in your step

One Word For Each Connections Group

Need some extra help? 

Be warned: we’re 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 — FAWN

• 🟩 Green group — MERMAID

• 🟦 Blue group — COLONEL

• 🟪 Purple group — PORKY

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — lay it on thick

• 🟩 Green group — Hans Christian Andersen figures

• 🟦 Blue group — silent "L"

• 🟪 Purple group — fictional pigs

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 — lay it on thick (FAWN, FLATTER, GUSH, PRAISE)

• 🟩 Green group — Hans Christian Andersen figures (DUCKLING, EMPEROR, MERMAID, PRINCESS)

• 🟦 Blue group — silent "L" (CALF, CHALK, COLONEL, WOULD)

• 🟪 Purple group — fictional pigs (BABE, NAPOLEON, PIGLET, PORKY)

A red herring caught me out immediately, as I went for a group of baby animals — DUCKLING, CALF, PIGLET, FAWN — to no avail. Rats! Or “pups!” That seems more fitting.

I soon realized that FAWN should go with what turned out to be the rest of the yellows. Very annoyed I didn't clock that link out of the gate.

DUCKLING and MERMAID led me into the greens, though it took me a moment to remember that EMPEROR and PRINCESS were their partners. These reference The Ugly DUCKLING, The Little MERMAID, The EMPEROR's New Clothes and The PRINCESS and the Pea.

Fun that we had a group of words with silent Ls after yesterday's silent Ts. But I would have swapped the green and blue difficult levels today.

That left the purples. I knew that BABE (of the movie of the same name), PIGLET (from Winnie the Pooh) and PORKY (the Looney Toons character) were famous pigs, but not NAPOLEON. I have never read Animal Farm and nor do I know much about it, so I was out of the loop there.

Another tough one today! No perfect game this time, but my streak now sits at 288 wins. Number 300 is on the horizon, gang.

How did you get on today? Here's my grid:

🟩🟦🟪🟨 
🟨🟨🟨🟨 
🟩🟩🟩🟩 
🟦🟦🟦🟦 
🟪🟪🟪🟪

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back over at Forbes for the Monday-Friday editions for the column. And if you haven’t subscribed to Pastimes already, definitely do that! It would be super sweet of you.

P.S. Here's a laidback Sunday jam for you. Mac DeMarco was in town to play a show last week. I was busy, or I might have gone. "Chamber Of Reflection" is a good song of his:

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

On weekdays, you can find this column over at Forbes. Please follow my blog there for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot!

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