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

I think there’s a simple explanation as to why I’ve been struggling to put together interesting intros for the column lately: I’m not really doing much! Don’t get me wrong, I’m very busy between work and some other things. That doesn’t exactly lead to compelling #content, though.

I’ve got to admit, I rarely leave my building. That’s a problem! And, truth be told, I’m going a little stir crazy.

There seems to be an obvious solution to this: go outside and do stuff, Kris!! But that clashes with my strong desire to stay indoors, in part to avoid the winter weather.

At least I’ll have to go out for a while tomorrow. I’m seeing Nine Inch Nails. Very much looking forward to that. Both for the show itself and to have something fun to write about.

(I think all of this may have been prompted by something I recently unlocked in Overwatch that lets me have a “Cozy Homebody” label on my profile.)

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, February 15 are coming right up.

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...

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

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…

Today’s Connections groups are...

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...

The purples jumped out at me more or less immediately. I thought they were pretty obvious for once, as RINGMASTER didn't make much sense with anything else. That also eliminated CALLIOPE, one of several Greek mythology figures on the grid, from contention for other groups.

OEDIPUS brought to mind "complex," so the blues were next up. I did have to look up whether "ELECTRA complex" was a thing though, since I hadn't heard of it and wanted to be sure.

It was a tossup as to whether the reference books would be yellow or green. I went with my gut and whiffed on the reverse rainbow, since they were the yellows. ECHO and REMINDER then made the green category clear enough.

That was a little bit of a head scratcher. Hope your streak is still intact. Mine's is now sitting at 351.

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. The purples led me down a rabbit hole of covers of "Call Me Maybe," one of the very best pop songs of the century so far. I don't think Ben Howard's take is necessarily a laidback one, but it's very good and certainly worthy of a recommendation on any day of the week:

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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