Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on January 30 for puzzle #233 are much more challenging than yesterday's, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.4 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers. And if the hints aren't enough, you'll find all 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #232, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #233. 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.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Impactful actions
- 🟩 Green: Daily editions
- 🟦 Blue: Lunar delights
- 🟪 Purple: The princess is in another castle
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.
Alright then, here's a larger hint: Treat today's puzzle like an intrepid reporter, sniffing out leads and connecting the dots to break the big story. Remember shapes can be a curve-ball, and don't be shy to leap into a nostalgic game of power-ups to unlock the final headline.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #233?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Hit hard: Bang, hammer, pound, slam
- 🟩 Newspaper names: Chronicle, Herald, Register, Sun
- 🟦 Crescent-shaped things: Banana, croissant, moon, sickle
- 🟪 Power-ups in Super Mario World: Feather, flower, mushroom, star
I unfolded today's Connections puzzle like the crisp rustle of a fresh morning newspaper, as so many names of publications were clearly vying for column inches in a category of newspaper titles. Chronicle, Sun, Herald, and Star—they were all potentials, but the fact we could include Register, too, stopped the presses for now.
Shifting focus, I eyed the breakfast nook, where Croissant, Banana, and Mushroom would all be quite tasty options. But a three-item breakfast would be too continental; I could only see Bang(-ers) as a potential companion and that seemed a bit too much of a stretch.
Feeling the pressure to not Bang, Hammer, Pound, or Slam down on my keyboard, I realized they themselves made the headline for the yellow category—verbs that packed a punch and delivered an impact.
I was still sure that one of the remaining two categories was a list of newspaper names, but which of the five potentials would fit in well with Feather, Flower, and Mushroom? Aha! My misspent youth of computer gaming finally became useful, as I recognized them all as things you can pick up in Super Mario World, just as you can pick up a Star!
I returned to the newsstand one last time, where Chronicle, Herald, Register, and Sun awaited publication. "Read all about it!" I cried as I lined them up in the green category, the day's edition now complete.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #232, which had a difficulty rating of 2.5 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
With Valentine's Day only a few weeks away, today's Connections throws up plenty of romance, perhaps as a useful reminder for us to get something for our beloved before February 14th.
Couple, Pair, Passion, and Love seemed to fit the theme, but I wasn't even one away as I saw an early life lost. The word Item prompted me to go down a slightly different theme, but as I combined it with Couple, Pair, and Deuce it remained incorrect, though with the fallback of only being one away. Replacing Deuce with Thing finally got me there for the first category of the day: Romantic twosome.
- 🟨 Do some marketing: Pitch, plug, promote, push
- 🟩 Romantic twosome: Couple, item, pair, thing
- 🟦 Tennis scores: Ad, all, deuce, love
- 🟪 Words with "fruit": Bread, dragon, jack, passion
Having watched the final of the Australian Open tennis yesterday (well done Jannick Sinner), the sport lingered in my sub-conscious as I figured Deuce and Love must be tennis-related, with All (as in 15-all) and Ad (as in advantage) completing the, er, set.
After a brief dalliance with a potential theme relating to projects (Passion, Promote) I zoned in on the theme of marketing, with Pitch, Plug, Promote, and Push completing the yellow category.
That left Bread, Dragon, Jack, and Passion for the final purple category, but the theme eluded me before I hit submit to find out. It seems my doctor is right, I do need to eat more fruit...
