Today's puzzle is all about seeing the forest through the trees.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for June 28 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,114. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,113, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
What is Connections
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.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers so you can keep your Connections streak going. And if the clues aren't enough, you'll find all four answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Today's Connection Grid and Words
- Miscreant
- Embark
- Crush
- Cabinet
- Rogue
- Groot
- Guzzle
- Cone
- Ruffian
- Nudibranch
- Inhale
- Magnet
- Scoundrel
- Strunk
- Snarf
- Woofer
We have the Connections categories below but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Ne'er-do-well
- 🟩 Green: Joey Chestnut
- 🟦 Blue: Boombox
- 🟪 Purple: The forest through the trees
Today's Connections Group Hints
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Old timey troublemakers
- 🟩 Green: Consume with gusto
- 🟦 Blue: Parts of a speaker
- 🟪 Purple: Ending in parts of a tree
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.
Today's Connections answers
The Connections answers on June 29 for puzzle #1,114 are a bit harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2 out of 5.
- 🟨 Old timey troublemakers: Miscreant, rogue, ruffian, scoundrel
- 🟩 Consume with gusto: Crush, guzzle, inhale, snarf
- 🟦 Parts of a speaker: Cabinet, cone, magnet, woofer
- 🟪 Ending in parts of a tree: Embark, groot, nudibranch, strunk
There were some wild looking words in today's puzzle. I had to look up nudibranch (they're adorable) and I still don't quite know what strunk means, but I had a hunch the root words in both had something to do with their connection. Groot and embark followed that same rule to round out purple.
But first I solved yellow with a bunch of old-timey words I like to whip out on the regular: miscreant, rogue, ruffian, and scoundrel.
I don't think I've ever heard someone use the word snarf outside of a cartoon, but the gist of it was easy enough to guess with words like crush, guzzle, and inhale still on the board.
With green out of the way, that left blue as today's rote fill with cabinet, cone, magnet, and woofer.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 High-quality: Choice, prime, fine, select
- 🟩 Signals to commence: Begin, go, now, start
- 🟦 Accessories for a guitarist: Capo, pick, slide, strap
- 🟪 They have boards: Chess, corporation, darts, surfer
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,113, which had a difficulty rating of 1.8 out of 5.
I kicked off today's puzzle with a quartet of synonyms for green: begin, go, now, start.
At first I thought there might be a category having to deal with synonyms for making a decision given that select and choice were still left, but then I realized they had another meaning when paired with fine and prime, which rounded out yellow.
My step-dad was a bass player in a blue grass band, and while I had to look up what a capo was, pick, slide, and strap made me think of guitars, which made blue easy to solve.
That left purple as today's rote fill with chess corporation, darts, and surfer.
