Today's Connections Hints (and Answer) for Tuesday, August 29

If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Tuesday, August 29, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Beware, there are spoilers below for August 29, NYT Connections #79! Scroll to the end if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.

How to play Connections

I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:

First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Crossword app. You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).

Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.

You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.

How to win Connections

The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.

If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.

Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints. Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And further down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

Does today’s Connections game require any special knowledge?

It would help a little to know the names of some obscure wild animals and to have at least heard of a few Catholic holidays, but you can probably work out the answers even if you don’t know those extra facts.

Here are some definitions of lesser-known words in today’s puzzle:

Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle

Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:

Does today’s Connections game involve any wordplay?

Yes. The purple group involves a fill-in-the-blank theme. And the green category involves words that are connected both by their meanings and by a feature of the way they are spelled.

Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.

BEWARE: Spoilers and answers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!

Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.

What are the yellow words in today’s Connections?

The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is DEPART QUICKLY and the words are: BOOK, BOUNCE, RUN, and SPLIT.

What are the green words in today’s Connections?

The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is ANIMALS THAT END WITH X and the words are: FOX, IBEX, LYNX, and ORYX.

What are the blue words in today’s Connections?

The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is SHADES OF BLACK and the words are: EBONY, JET, ONYX, RAVEN.

What are the purple words in today’s Connections?

The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is WORDS BEFORE DAYS OF THE WEEK and the words are: ASH [Wednesday], BLACK [Friday], CYBER [Monday], and FAT [Tuesday].

How I solved today’s Connections

Look, I’m a whiz at word games. I have a 99% win rate on Wordle and I’m not afraid of a Sunday crossword. But it turns out that I am not great at Connections...at least not yet. So we will learn together, okay? I used the strategy of jotting down possibilities on paper, which is also how I cut my teeth on those early Wordle puzzles.

The first things I spotted on today’s Connections grid were the different shades of black: ONYX, BLACK, RAVEN, EBONY. “Black” felt out of place there (shades of black, including BLACK?), so I jotted these down on scratch paper and kept going.

Aside from ONYX, there were several unusual words with an X, all of them animals: ORYX (an antelope), IBEX (a wild goat), and LYNX (a cat related to the bobcat). I realized that FOX, though less unusual also fit the theme.

ASH and EBONY are both trees (or types of wood), but I couldn’t find any other words to fit with those.

JET, RUN, BOUNCE, and BOOK could all describe ways of speedily leaving an unpleasant situation. But then what’s up with FAT and CYBER and SPLIT?

Looking at some of these lonely words on my paper, I tried to think of phrases that included CYBER. When I thought of “cyber Monday” I remembered there was also a “black Monday.” ASH could then be...Wednesday? And FAT Tuesday! Which means BLACK is more likely to be BLACK Friday.

With BLACK out of the list of black colors, I realized JET could also be “jet black,” and lonely SPLIT was the one that could take JET’s place in the list of ways to skedaddle. I now had four groups of four on paper (call me an overthinker) and submitted them for the win, starting with the X animals. Perfect score.