The New York Times’ Connections puzzle for November 9, 2023, has been solved. The game challenges players to group 16 words into four categories of four, based on shared themes. Today’s puzzle included a particularly quirky purple category, referencing 1970s pop culture.
Here’s a breakdown of the solutions:
Yellow Category: Grooming Essentials
The yellow group revolves around items used for personal care. The words are: brush, mirror, nail file, and tweezers. This category is relatively straightforward, testing vocabulary related to self-maintenance.
Green Category: Density & Packing
The green grouping focuses on concepts of compactness. The answers are: compact, dense, thick, and tight. This category plays on the various ways we describe something being closely packed or substantial.
Blue Category: Thoughtful Consideration
The blue group explores the act of thinking deeply. The words are: deliberate, muse, noodle, and reflect. This is a slightly more abstract category, requiring players to associate words with mental processes.
Purple Category: Bird-Inspired Wordplay
The purple category is the most challenging, hinging on puns related to bird sounds. The answers are: cranium (sounds like “crane”), cronut (sounds like “crow”), lunar (sounds like “loon”), and Pufnstuf (sounds like “puffin”). This category relies on phonetic association rather than a direct thematic connection.
The Connections puzzle, alongside others like Wordle and the Mini Crossword, has grown in popularity as a daily mental exercise. The NYT now even offers a bot to track player performance, catering to those who enjoy quantifying their puzzle-solving skills.
The game’s design mixes accessible and obscure categories, ensuring a blend of satisfaction and frustration. The purple group, in particular, highlights the puzzle’s tendency toward unconventional connections.
