NYT Connections today hints and answers — Friday, August 30 (#446)

1. Today's hints

2. Today's answer

3. Yesterday's answer

Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on August 30 for puzzle #446 leap back up in difficulty compared to yesterday's answers, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.9 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, #445, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #446. 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 : Sparking things
• 🟩 Green : Participate in summer Olympics events
• 🟦 Blue : Wonders of the world
• 🟪 Purple : Ice _____

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: Get shiny before remembering sports we just watched in Paris while taking in a cold treat before recalling some great structures of the ancient past.

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #446?

Drumroll, please...

• 🟨 Sparkling things: Diamond, glitter, gold, sequin
• 🟩 Participate in summer Olympic events: Box, dive, fence, row
• 🟦 Wonders of the world: Gardens, lighthouse, pyramid, temple
• 🟪 Ice _____: Cream, cube, machine, storm

Since I started putting together these Connections guides, I don't think I've seen a puzzle labeled 4 or 5 in difficulty. Today's 3.9 is the highest I've seen. Does it get there?

On difficulty Connections grids, snagging the yellow category first, as I did today, always feels bad because there isn't a category to fall back on if you're struggling. Anyway, yellow was shiny today with diamond, glitter, gold and sequin.

After finding the green category third, I actually though Blue was an easier find today. Though, I wasn't thinking of Wonders of the ancient world as I got gardens, lighthouse, pyramid and temple, though my thought train was structures of import. So, not that far off.

I took a couple of strikes here as I got stuck on cube, row and box and was trying to find a math connection.

A bit late for Olympics now, though the Paraolympics did just start, but I was stuck looking at box and just starting adding -ing to words which got me to Dive (ing), Fence (ing) and Row (ing). It actually felt harder than the blue category which isn't usually the case.

The purple row felt surprisingly obvious once I uncovered it with (ice) cream, (ice) cube, (ice) machine and (ice) storm. Honestly, it felt like I should have gotten that one earlier instead of mucking my way through the green category.

I'm not sure if this 3.9 felt more difficult than other puzzles we've had in Connections but it did make me pause for a bit. I do wonder what an eventual 4 or 5 difficulty would look like though.

Yesterday's Connections answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #445, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion .

I've mentioned before but it is satisfying when you can go down the line with the categories.

I managed that today starting with piano kinds; electronic, grand, player and upright.

I took a strike on green trying to make titles work with count, judge, duke and admittedly forcing noble. The strike opened it up and sticking with count and judge was able to quickly add consider and regard.

Universities was quick from there with Brown, Duke, Howard and Smith.

There were opportunities to get purple early in the search, I was thinking of Johnson & Johnson and Proctor & Gamble, but I've never heard of whatever Noble & (Cooley?) or Young & (Company?) are, so I wasn't completely sure. Noble & Cooley is an instrument manufacturer known for their drum sets. Young might be Ernst & Young one of the bigger accounting firms in the US. Which made it nice that purple was the rote fill at the end.