NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, December 28

(This GIF has absolutely nothing to do with today’s game. I was looking for one related to NOODLE, then “spiralizer.” This one of Moira Rose popped up, so I am duty bound to select it.)

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

I’m a little under the weather as I write this, so I’m going to skip the usual intro. Sorry! Instead of closing the column with the daily affirmations, I’m going to share them right here. Just to hammer home the message(s), which I think are important! Also, I’m not sure that everyone sees them given that they’re always right at the end:

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

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 28 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...

• DUSKY

• SPRING

• STILL

• PERRIER

• BOX

• STATIONARY

• GEAR

• ENVELOPE

• NOODLE

• RATCHET

• TUBE

• STATIC

• PAWL

• CONSTANT

• SOXER

• MAILER

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

• 🟨 Yellow group — the USPS is very familiar with all of these

• 🟩 Green group — going nowhere fast

• 🟦 Blue group — not so “smart,” but they really don’t have to be

• 🟪 Purple group — these start in ruff shape and might give you paws for thought

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 — TUBE

• 🟩 Green group — STATIC

• 🟦 Blue group — GEAR

• 🟪 Purple group — SOXER

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — containers for shipping

• 🟩 Green group — unmoving

• 🟦 Blue group — mechanical watch parts

• 🟪 Purple group — dogs with first letter changed

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 — containers for shipping (BOX, ENVELOPE, MAILER, TUBE)

• 🟩 Green group — unmoving (CONSTANT, STATIC, STATIONARY, STILL)

• 🟦 Blue group — mechanical watch parts (GEAR, PAWL, RATCHET, SPRING)

• 🟪 Purple group — dogs with first letter changed (DUSKY, NOODLE, PERRIER, SOXER)

SOXER is one of the most purple-coded words this game has ever seen. After I glared at it for a moment of bemusement, “boxer” appeared in my head. That made me suspect “dog breeds with a letter changed” might be on the agenda. I went on the hunt and sure enough, I soon found PERRIER (terrier), NOODLE (poodle) and DUSKY (husky) to give me to the purples.

STATIONARY is the one that means “remain in place,” so it couldn’t go with ENVELOPE. Instead, it fit with the rest of the greens. From there, the blues bunched up together on the left of the grid — I just figured they were general machine parts. That left the yellows, which were clear enough anyway, to wrap things up.

Another perfect game brings my overall streak up to 302. Nice!

How did you get on today? Here’s my grid for this one:

🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨

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. My partner was flicking through the music channels on TV recently and stopped on a “hits” channel that was playing this song. I’d never heard “You Can Have It All” by Or Bleu featuring Mike Clay and Kallitechnis before, but I enjoyed the beat. It’s both upbeat and laidback at the same time, a bit like something you might hear while having breakfast somewhere in Ibiza:

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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