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Tom’s Guide
Tom’s Guide
Technology
Scott Younker

Today's NYT Connections hints and answers — Tuesday, July 23, #408

NYT Connections.

Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on July 23 for puzzle #408 take a dip in difficulty compared to yesterday's answers, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3 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, #407, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #408. 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: Impostor
  • 🟩 Green: Utterance
  • 🟦 Blue: One who likes showing off
  • 🟪 Purple: Looney Tunes characters minus a letter

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: Start with Looney Tunes and then the fakes, one uppers and utterances will come through. 

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #404?

Drumroll, please...

  • 🟨 Imposter: Charlatan, fraud, quack, sham
  • 🟩 Utterance: Noise, peep, sound, word
  • 🟦 One who likes showing off: Ham, hot dog, peacock, showboat
  • 🟪 Looney Tunes characters minus a letter: Bug, pork, speed, tweet

Days like today are when I have to consider what types of purple categories I like and dislike. I would say out of all the similar ones the "Word minus a letter" are my least favorite. 

Despite, supposedly, being easier than yesterday's puzzle, today was a slog for me. 

My first strike came while putting the yellow category together in that I tried to put charlatan together with hot dog, peacock and showboat instead of ham for the blue category. I think it works in general but it definitely fits better with fraud, quack and sham.

Here is where I ran into trouble. I could not for the life of me see the connections between the green words and the purple words. For far too long I had noise, sound and speed and was just willing another word to fit. Two strikes in a row say that I was forcing it.

It wasn't until I finally decided to just cross off words that didn't fit with anything at all that I was able to limit down noise, sound, peep, tweet and word. 

I still don't think word works for the category of Utterance, but I get it and the trap is tweet. 

Anyway, the purple category was left and despite loving the Looney Tunes, I found no joy in this category. 

Some days you're mind is against you, or in my case, I stared blankly at the screen for far longer than I care to admit. It was empty.

Yesterday's Connections answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #407, which had a difficulty rating of 3.7 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

The seemingly unconnected words of chain, fight, processor and pyramid made for a fun challenge. 

I found green to be incredibly easy today, with the musical instrument theme coming together quickly. From there, I was a little more stumped. 

I discovered the connection between area, domain, and field as land ownership, but I missed out on the sphere for longer than I want to admit, giving the ordinarily easy yellow category a little more challenge.

The blue category is fun, with the words perfectly designed to steer you in the wrong direction. I eventually connected the words to traffic, leaving me with five seemingly random words — Chain, fight, processor, pyramid and sphere. I sat on these for a while before guessing that sphere connected to the yellow category, leaving just the four purple words to finish the puzzle.

I've said it before, but having the purple category be fun puts a smile on my face in the morning, and today's was a good one.

Enjoy the new week. Hopefully, today's puzzle will put you in a lovely mood to start the day.

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