If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Thursday, January 30, 2025, 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 January 30, NYT Connections #599! 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!
Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle
Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:
Yellow category - A certain je ne sais quoi.
Green category - Stuff on hand for a Super Bowl party.
Blue category - Can we move on, please? You keep doing this.
Purple category - Places you can visit in a single continent, but they have a bunch of extra stuff at the end.
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.)
A heads up about the tricky parts
RIGATONI and PIZZA are both Italian foods, but they don’t go together.
HALO, WINGS, and HARP do not go together. HARP is a verb and WINGS are edible.
If you’re struggling with today’s purple category, you may wish to refer to this reference page.
What are the categories in today’s Connections?
Yellow: INTANGIBLE QUALITY
Green: GAME DAY FARE
Blue: KEEP GOING ON ABOUT, WITH “ON”
Purple: STARTING WITH EUROPEAN CAPITALS
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 INTANGIBLE QUALITY and the words are: AIR, AURA, HALO, VIBE.
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 GAME DAY FARE and the words are: BEER, DIP, PIZZA, WINGS.
What are the blue words in today’s Connections?
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is KEEP GOING ON ABOUT, WITH “ON” and the words are: DWELL, HARP, INSIST, LINGER.
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 STARTING WITH EUROPEAN CAPITALS and the words are: BERNIE, PARISH, RIGATONI, ROMEO.
How I solved today’s Connections
HALO and HARP could go together as items associated with depictions of angels. Oh, WINGS and AURA could go with those, too. PARISH is also a religious word, but it doesn’t fit as cleanly here.
Ah, but AURA, VIBE, and AIR might also go together as words referring to the impression someone gives off. Maybe HALO actually goes with those three words, because that’s also a word describing a sort of peripheral glow. Let’s try that. 🟨
OK, so I think WINGS might actually be referring to a food that could go with PIZZA, DIP, BEER, and maybe RIGATONI.
LINGER and DWELL could go together. Ah, and INSIST and HARP also go with those words—as in, “he kept HARPing on about the importance of organic produce.” 🟦
I think PIZZA, BEER, WINGS, and DIP probably go together now. If this is right, I’m not sure about the last four, but let’s try this category first. 🟩
OK, so that leaves BERNIE, PARISH, ROMEO, and RIGATONI. At first I thought there might be a Shakespeare thing going on, because ROMEO and PARISH (minus the “h”) would both be characters from Romeo and Juliet, but ROMEO doesn’t have an extra letter to make that work.
BERNIE makes me think of Bernie Sanders, but I don’t think that’s getting me anywhere. None of these other words go with “Sanders.” No idea! Let’s see. 🟪 STARTING WITH EUROPEAN CAPITALS? I guess that would be Bern, Switzerland; Paris, France; Riga, Latvia; and Rome, Italy. That was a tricky one.
Connections Puzzle #599 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪
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 Games app (formerly the 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!
