‘Connections’ January 13: Hints and Answers for Puzzle #582

The New York Times is continuing to enjoy success with its daily online puzzles, with Connections being another example.

The daily brainteaser features 16 seemingly random words grouped together in a box.

How To Play ‘Connections’

The aim is to find four words that link together into a category, meaning that there are four groups all together.

Each of the categories is separated into four colors. The easier and often more obvious group of four will become yellow once found all together, followed by green, blue and, the hardest or more obscure group, purple.

Once you have found one group of four words that are connected, they are essentially removed from the game and can no longer be selected while trying to find a link between the remaining words.

Users have four attempts, or lives, to correctly guess the four groups. If you are unable to get all four connections, the answers and their corresponding difficulty color will be revealed at the end.

Woman on phone — A woman uses her smartphone on December 1, 2024 in Newcastle, Australia. Newsweek has compiled tips for today’s “Connections.”

Roni Bintang/Getty Images

Wyna Liu, Connections editor, previously answered a series of questions about the game for The New York Times.

When asked what tips she can provide players, Liu told Newsweek: “One suggestion that may help save some guesses is if you start selecting cards and notice that there are five or more that belong to that category, try pivoting to a different category before making that first guess.

“Doing so might take one of those extra cards out of contention, or at least remove a few cards from the board, making other categories easier to see.”

Liu also said that the original placement of the 16 words at the start of each game is intentional. It can result in players thinking they are connected when they are not the answer the game is looking for.

Connections was launched in June 2023 and is now the news outlet’s second-most-played game after the smash hit of Wordle.

Below, Newsweek has offered some clues to the categories and how to solve Monday’s game.