Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on December 22 for puzzle #560 jumped in difficulty compared to yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.5 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, #559, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #560. 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: Stats, Crown, Abbott, Elementary, Nun, Key, Dome, Abba, Laurel, Monk, Coconut, Fry, Skull, Bones, Kayak, Kojak
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Slang for head
- 🟩 Green: Palindromes
- 🟦 Blue: Police procedurals
- 🟪 Purple: First in a comedy duo
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: Today's puzzle will test your funny bone, so whip out your magnifying glass, rack your brain, and remember to look both ways.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #560?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Slang for head: Coconut, Crown, Dome, Skull
- 🟩 Palindromes: Abba, Kayak, Nun, Stats
- 🟦 Police procedurals: Bones, Elementary, Kojak, Monk
- 🟪 First in a comedy duo: Abbott, Fry, Key, Laurel
I first saw a lot of TV show names, so I figured that'd be the best place to start, with Monk, Bones, Elementary, and Kojak rounding out the blue category.
After that came purple with Abbott, Fry, Key, and Laurel, as I'm a big fan of all the comedy duos listed even if some were before my time.
Yellow was surprisingly hard to solve today. Something about seeing Nun and Dome together had me thinking about religious structures, but once I saw other slang words like Coconut, Crown, and Skull it all came together.
That left only green with Abba, Kayak, Nun, and Stats.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Loops: Band, circle, hoop, ring
- 🟩 Cooking vessels: Casserole, crock, pot, pan
- 🟦 Kinds of beds: Bunk, canopy, murphy, sleigh
- 🟪 Things called "Oscar": Baloney, Grouch, O, Statuette
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #559, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
I initially started with what I thought was a beds category having seen murphy. A relative of mine is obsessed with putting Murphy beds everywhere, so I am familiar with that. Bunk stuck out from there but for some reason I got distracted by casserole and crock. My thought was cooking vessels but I didn't quite believe that pan or pot would be involved, I was looking for more named things. Anyway, I put pot and pan with the other two and got the green category.
I took down the yellow quartet next mostly because it was in my way. Band, circle, ring, hoop.
Finally, I came back to beds with canopy and sleigh. Sleigh is the tricky one here I think, but maybe I'm wrong as I don't think people really have sleigh beds anymore.
And we ended with things named Oscar; baloney, Grouch, O and statuette.
