Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on December 9 for puzzle #547 are a little easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.6 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers so you can keep your Connections streak going. And if the clues aren't enough, you'll find all four answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #546, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #547. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Unlike our guide to today's Wordle answer, where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category's difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you've made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.
Today's Connections words are: Ray, Factor, Lighter, Stain, Microscope, Games, Consideration, Magnifying Glass, Reflection, Matches, Slide, Thought, Flint, Files, Scrutiny, and Specimen.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Chew over
- 🟩 Green: A spark
- 🟦 Blue: High school science class
- 🟪 Purple: A letter associated with one Charles Xavier
These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.
Here's a larger hint: Ruminate, immolate, then excavate what you remember from dissecting frogs in school. And maybe review the alphabet while you're at it.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #547?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Deliberation: Consideration, Reflection, Scrutiny, Thought
- 🟩 Used in starting a fire: Flint, Lighter, Magnifying Glass, Matches
- 🟦 Used to view a biological sample: Microscope, Slide, Specimen, Stain
- 🟪 Words after 'X': Factor, Files, Games, Ray
Kicking off things with the easiest category always means things just get harder from here, but it didn't take much, er, scrutiny to realize the word was tied to Consideration, Reflection, and Thought.
Next came the green category with Flint, Lighter, Magnifying Glass, and Matches, which wasn't too difficult to suss out if you've ever been camping. Or, in my case, if you've seen enough horror movies about folks getting lost in the woods to recognize everything you need to start a fire (and to only do so at your own risk, because that is how the monsters find them like 90% of the time, after all).
I struck out a few times trying to dig through half-remembered lessons from high school biology class and connect Microscope and Slide with some other clues. But that science-y line did make me think of x-rays, which led to noticing that Factor, Files, Games, and Ray all took on a new meaning when preceded by the letter X.
That left only blue, and my instincts were proven correct that it was indeed biology 101 thingamajigs. I got Microscope, Slide, and Specimen, it was just Stain I was missing.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Punch: Belt, Blow, Slug, Sock
- 🟩 Cram: Sandwich, Shoehorn, Squeeze, Wedge
- 🟦 Companies named after animals: Caterpillar, Dove, Greyhound, Puma
- 🟪 Homophones of music genres: Indy, Mettle, Seoul, Wrap
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #546, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Greyhound stuck out to me immediately, and with no other dog-related words I figured the category had something to do with the line of buses. With that in mind, Puma and Dove stood out as other company names, and once I remembered the CAT on those big yellow construction machines stood for Caterpillar, that rounded out the blue category.
Next came the yellow category with a right hook and plenty of punchy words like Belt, Blow, Slug, and Sock.
After that, I was left scratching my head over what Mettle and Seoul had to do with anything, but Sandwich, Squeeze, and Wedge are close enough synonyms that Shoehorn finally stood out to me, especially with Sock out of the occasion, and rounded out the green category.
That left purple as the rote fill with Indy, Mettle, Seoul, and Wrap. I never seem to pick up on the homophone clue or ones where words or letters are missing, and this puzzle was no different. Womp womp.
