Today's puzzle is a mix of workplace software, fur babies, and toe-tapping tunes.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for August 17 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,163. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,162, 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
- Macro
- Meet
- Dolly
- Dogie
- Zoom
- Cattle
- Fisheye
- Script
- Willie
- Birdie
- Patsy
- Function
- Huddle
- Formula
- Johnny
- Teams
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Hop on a call
- 🟩 Green: Excel
- 🟦 Blue: Grand Ole Opry
- 🟪 Purple: Fur babies
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: Video call platforms
- 🟩 Green: Spreadsheet features
- 🟦 Blue: First names of country music legends
- 🟪 Purple: Starting with pets
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 August 17 for puzzle #1,163 are a smidge easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 1.8 out of 5.
- 🟨 Video call platforms: Huddle, meet, teams, zoom
- 🟩 Spreadsheet features: Formula, function, macro, script
- 🟦 First names of country music legends: Dolly, Johnny, Patsy, Willie
- 🟪 Starting with pets: Birdie, cattle, dogie, fisheye
Today's puzzle only took a small step down in difficulty, but it seemed like much more than that given how easy it was. Maybe I've just been burning the midnight oil too muchh though, because two out of four of the categories have to do with common workplace tools.
Starting off with yellow, which anyone who's done any remote work these past few years could spot with their eyes close: huddle, meet, teams, and zoom.
My step-father was a bass player in several bluegrass, country, and gospel bands over the years, so once I saw Dolly I had a hunch what other names to look for for green. Johnny, Patsy, and Willie round out the rest of the category.
Then some more workplace software jumped out at me for green with formula, function, macro, and script.
That left purple as today's rote fill with birdie, cattle, dogie, and fisheye.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Musical performance: Concert, gig, set, show
- 🟩 Participant: Actor, agent, party, player
- 🟦 Family relationship modifiers: Grand, great, half, step
- 🟪 Descriptors for our human ancestors: From neander, handy, upright, wise
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,162, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5.
Today's puzzle had nothing to do with pianos, as it took me two guesses to realize. The right placement was much more literal than I was thinking, first up with concert going with gig, set, and show for yellow.
As for player, that went alongside a quartet of synonyms for green: actor, agent, and party.
Then came grand, which had a meaning that hit a little closer to home for blue alongside great, half, and step.
That left upright as my last piano-adjacent clue to get rid of, which I did with some other words gesturing at evolution for purple: from neander, handy, and wise.
