The New York Times’ Connections puzzle for December 9th (#912) proved challenging for many players. This daily word game requires identifying four groups of four words based on shared themes. For those seeking assistance, here’s a breakdown of the puzzle’s solutions, categorized by difficulty level, from the most straightforward yellow group to the elusive purple group.
Decoding the Groups
The puzzle’s difficulty lies in recognizing subtle connections between seemingly unrelated terms. The Connections Bot, a new feature for registered Times Games users, tracks performance metrics like win rate and streak length. This allows players to analyze their strategy over time.
Yellow: “Bear in Mind”
The yellow category featured the words consider, count, factor, and include. The unifying theme is that all of these terms relate to taking something into account or keeping it in mind during a decision-making process.
Green: “Striped Animals”
The green group included clownfish, honeybee, tiger, and zebra. The obvious link is the presence of stripes in each animal’s appearance. The puzzle designers often use visual cues to make the connections more accessible.
Blue: “Associated with Rainbows”
The blue category featured Dorothy Gale, leprechaun, pride, and unicorn. All four terms are strongly linked to the imagery or symbolism of rainbows—whether through folklore, cultural movements, or mythical creatures.
Purple: “Beginning with Number Homophones”
The purple category proved the most difficult, featuring Fievel, forehead, toucan, and wonder. The connection is that each word starts with a homophone of a number: five, four, two, and one, respectively. This type of abstract grouping is a hallmark of the game’s challenge.
Conclusion
Today’s Connections puzzle required a combination of word association, cultural awareness, and even phonetic recognition to solve. The game continues to test players’ linguistic skills and pattern-recognition abilities in a daily format.
