NYT Connections today hints and answers — Saturday, July 27 (#412)

1. Today's hints

2. Today's answer

3. Yesterday's answer

Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on July 27 for puzzle #412 are once again the same difficulty as yesterday's answers, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.6 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, #411, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #412. 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 : Off-topic remarks
• 🟩 Green : Create as results
• 🟦 Blue : Hottie
• 🟪 Purple : Words represented by the letter 'R'

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: Are you a certified ten? Then excuse my digression while we create something rated R.

...I think I should feel embarrassment for this one.

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #412?

Drumroll, please...

• 🟨 Off-topic remarks: Aside, detour, digression, tangent
• 🟩 Create, as results: Bear, generate, produce, yield
• 🟦 Hottie: Babe, fox, snack, ten
• 🟪 Words represented by the letter 'R': Are, radius, reverse, right

Surprisingly, the difficulty score for today's puzzle was the exact same as Friday and Thursday's, though for me, today and Friday felt more crackable than Thursday.

I managed to find the green category first seeing generate, produce and yield. I was hoping for more animals with bear and fox, but alas. Speaking of bear, there is the phrase "bear fruit" which means to yield results. However, I don't think the word alone really lends it self to this definition. The only other thing I could think of was "bear a child", but that doesn't seem grammatically correct for this category.

For some reason when I put together aside, detour, digression and tangent I was quite surprised that they were for the yellow category. I legitimately thought I was putting the blue together. I do try to wipe the harder categories first and tend to try and save yellow unless I need to use it to clear the board and my mind a bit.

The real blue category was kind of fun with babe, fox, snack and ten. I enjoy slang categories.

I'll admit, my initial thought upon seeing the purple category title was that it was wrong. Radius, r, reverse, yep that's an R, right, yeah, an R as well. Despite knowing that R like "how r u?" exists, I didn't want to accept it. Ah well, sometimes you need to let the first thought go and see what comes second, or even third.

Yesterday's Connections answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #411, which had a difficulty rating of 2.6 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion .

Despite being the same difficulty rating as yesterday's puzzle, this one was easier to crack.

Perhaps because of the political noise of the presidential race that feels like it's been ongoing since 2020, I had the green category pegged immediately with back, champion, endorse and support.

I thought the yellow category might be a trap with down, left, right and up, but I rolled the dice just in case and was rewarded.

For some reason I got stuck on the word ding and it threw off my thinking for the last two categories. It took longer than I care to admit to actually put con, ding, minus and strike together for the blue category.

Purple became a rote fill with base (bass), liar (lyre), loot (lute) and symbol (cymbal). I liked this one but it is a type of purple category that I tend to struggle with. I think I look for narrative connections versus lingual connections. If I can tell myself a story of sorts, it makes it easier for my mind to see the connections