Today's puzzle comes mailed in a tube from a leader with a bowl cut.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for August 31 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,177. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,176, 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
- Super
- Caliph
- Fragile
- Lipstick
- Salad
- Heavy
- Dust
- Poster
- Pharaoh
- Poke
- Toothpaste
- Khan
- Perishable
- Tennis balls
- Shogun
- This side up
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Break a sweat
- 🟩 Green: Red or white
- 🟦 Blue: Bushy-tailed
- 🟪 Purple: Partner
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: Things that come in tubes
- 🟩 Green: Warnings on a shipping box
- 🟦 Blue: Historical sovereign titles
- 🟪 Purple: ___ bowl
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 31 for puzzle #1,177 are easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.8 out of 5.
- 🟨 Things that come in tubes: Lipstick, poster, tennis balls, toothpaste
- 🟩 Warnings on a shipping box: Fragile, heavy, perishable, this side up
- 🟦 Historical sovereign titles: Caliph, Khan, pharoah, shogun
- 🟪____ bowl: Dust, poke, salad, super
Ok, Connections Crew. I see what you did in that first line. Super, caliph, fragile, lipstick sounds on awful lot like a certain song from Disney "Marry Poppins."
A tube of lipstick was the first thing that came to mind, and when I saw tennis balls I figured I was on the right track. Poster was easy enough, but toothpaste took me an embarrassingly long time to get.
After that came green with some postage mainstays: fragile, heavy, perishable, and this side up.
I wasn't sure what a caliph was, but it sounded fancy enough to go along with the titles I did recognize: khan, pharaoh, and shogun.
That left purple as today's rote fill with dust, poke, salad, and super. Hope you enjoyed your weekend folks! It's a great day for a great day!
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Exercise facilities: Gymnasium, health club, rec center, YMCA
- 🟩 Wine accessories: Aerator, corkscrew, decanter, stopper
- 🟦 Brands with bunny rabbit mascots: Cadbury, energizer, playboy, trix
- 🟪Words on an old west wanted poster: Alias, outlaw, reward, wanted
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,176, which had a difficulty rating of 2.2 out of 5.
Energizer jumped out at me first today, because what else could it be referring to but the bunny? When I saw trix, I knew I was on the right track, and I picked up cadbury and playboy to solve blue.
Outlaw made me think of the wild west, and so I went searching for other related words. I came up with alias, reward, and wanted for purple.
Then I took a step back and solved the easiest category, yellow, with a handful of synonyms for places to work up a sweat: gymnasium, health club, rec center, and YMCA.
That left green as today's rote fill with some wine accessories: aerator, corkscrew, decanter, and stopper.
