Ready for some INTEL on today’s computer-brand-studded board? If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Thursday, November 2, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for November 2, NYT Connections #144! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.
If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.
Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther 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 helps to know that DELL and GLEN are dictionary words (referring to landscape features) and not just names. Otherwise, there’s nothing obscure or that would rely on a pop culture reference.
Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle
Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:
- Yellow category – Heating up.
- Green category – Learning something.
- Blue category – Over hill and dale, perhaps.
- Purple category – You’ll have to get to the heart of this matter.
Does today’s Connections game involve any wordplay?
The purple category is not a fill-in-the-blank today; it’s based on what the four things have in common.
Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.
BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!
We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)
What are the ambiguous words in today’s Connections?
- A DELL can be a computer brand, but it’s also a word meaning a valley. (Dale and DELL both derive from the same Old English word.)
- An APPLE is, of course, both a fruit and another computer brand. Today’s puzzle will keep you on your toes by pairing APPLE with COMPUTER but not referring to Apple brand computers at all.
- A KINDLE is both an e-reader device and a verb meaning to tend a small fire and help it to grow. (The fuel you use at this stage typically consists of thin sticks, which are known as kindling.)
What are the categories in today’s Connections?
- Yellow: IGNITE
- Green: INFORMATION
- Blue: SMALL WOODED AREA
- Purple: THINGS WITH CORES
DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW
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 IGNITE and the words are: BURN, KINDLE, LIGHT, TORCH.
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 INFORMATION and the words are: DATA, INFO, INTEL, NEWS.
What are the blue words in today’s Connections?
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is SMALL WOODED AREA and the words are: DELL, GLEN, HOLLOW, VALLEY. (I have a complaint here; these words do not necessarily refer to wooded areas. They are all valleys, or depressions in the landscape typically with a stream at the bottom. You can have a VALLEY or a HOLLOW with no trees at all.)
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 THINGS WITH CORES and the words are: APPLE, COMPUTER, PLANET, REACTOR.
How I solved today’s Connections
DELL is a computer brand, but it’s also a VALLEY, HOLLOW, or GLEN. (Remember the “farmer in the dell” from preschool? They weren’t talking about a laptop.) 🟦
Now that that’s out of the way, we definitely don’t have enough computer brands to make a group. What else is INTEL, then? It’s short for intelligence—as in, what a spy would gather. It’s INFO, DATA, NEWS. 🟩 TORCH, LIGHT, KINDLE, and BURN are ways of starting fires. 🟨
Now I’m left with APPLE, COMPUTER, REACTOR, and PLANET. One fruit and three sci-fi movie components. It’s purple, so probably a fill-in-the-blank or something similarly tricky. I try out some possibilities: Captain PLANET…Captain APPLE? No. Nuclear REACTOR, nuclear APPLE? That doesn’t work either. It takes me a minute to think of things with chips (COMPUTER chip, APPLE chip? Almost!) and then I realize they are all things with cores. 🟪
Connections
Puzzle #144
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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–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!
