NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, September 14

Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far. (Portal is such a great game.)

It’s wild how one night of bad sleep can knock you off your game for days. I was doing pretty well at bringing down my sleep debt, but just one night of not enough snoozing sent that rocketing back up. It’s a frustrating, one step forward, two steps back feeling.

I’m trying to not let it get to me. I just have to try to tune out the distractions, get my head on the pillow and close my eyes. (And also keep my beard tidy because it gets super itchy against the pillow otherwise, and that really doesn’t help!)

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, September 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...

• MAIN

• SCALE

• DOOR

• KEY

• TOP

• COMPASS

• WALL

• GATE

• BEST

• FLEET

• BEAT

• INSET

• PORTAL

• BETTER

• DOWNING

• HATCH

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

• 🟨 Yellow group — how to get in or out

• 🟩 Green group — here, north is usually up

• 🟦 Blue group — lead others

• 🟪 Purple group — paved with history

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 — HATCH

• 🟩 Green group — INSET

• 🟦 Blue group — TOP

• 🟪 Purple group — MAIN

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — entryway

• 🟩 Green group — map features

• 🟦 Blue group — surpass

• 🟪 Purple group — streets with symbolic importance

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 — entryway (DOOR, GATE, HATCH, PORTAL)

• 🟩 Green group — map features (COMPASS, INSET, KEY, SCALE)

• 🟦 Blue group — surpass (BEAT, BEST, BETTER, TOP)

• 🟪 Purple group — streets with symbolic importance (DOWNING, FLEET, MAIN, WALL)

Pretty easy game today, I felt, but I do think this one requires a bit of cultural knowledge — especially if you're hoping to get the purples without them being the leftovers.

Those were obvious to me as soon as I got to DOWNING (the street where the U.K. prime minister's official residence is). FLEET Street is both where Sweeney Todd plied his trade and a place that most British national newspapers used to call home. WALL Street is, of course, a synonym for New York's financial district and MAIN Street is the name of the primary retail street in many towns and cities (and an area in Disney theme parks).

The map stuff was no problem, thanks to COMPASS and SCALE. The blues and yellows were straightforward too.

That's another perfect game pour moi, and win number 198 on my current streak. Two days to go until another big milestone! Here's my grid for today:

🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨

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. Not sure how relaxing this song is (that’s generally the vibe I like to go with on Sunday mornings), but it’s not too energetic and it puts a smile on my face, so here we are. Please enjoy “Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks:

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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