Today's puzzle won't break your brain if you're thinking clearly.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for November 14 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,252. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,251, 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
- Complex
- Chess
- Battle
- Advanced
- Marriage
- Progressive
- Center
- Mottle
- Go
- Facility
- Modern
- Othello
- Trib
- Stratego
- Campus
- Foremost
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Future
- 🟩 Green: The spot
- 🟦 Blue: Risk
- 🟪 Purple: Infant
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: Cutting-Edge
- 🟩 Green: Locations for an Institution
- 🟦 Blue: Strategy Board Games
- 🟪 Purple: Baby Gear With First Letter Changed
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 November 14 for puzzle #1,252 are slightly easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2 out of 5
- 🟨 Cutting-Edge: Advanced, Foremost, Modern, Progressive
- 🟩 Locations for an Institution: Campus, Center, Complex, Facility
- 🟦 Strategy Board Games: Chess, Go, Othello, Stratego
- 🟪 Baby Gear With First Letter Changed: Battle, Marriage, Mottle, Trib
As you can see, I went all kinds of out of order today. And I'm not going to lie, it took me quite a while to figure out the blue and get the puzzle rolling. I have never heard of the game Go, but it sounded like it could be a game, so I guessed it along with the other three and happened to be right.
From there, I registered the building types quickly, which the game officially called Locations for an Institution.
Next, it was a matter of scanning through the eight remaining words to find four that connected. After a few brief moments, I spotted the cutting-edge connection and locked it in.
That left just the purple, which I have to admit I would have never figured out were it not the only four pieces of the puzzle left.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Use the Internet: Browse, Scroll, Search, Surf
- 🟩 Media Attention: Coverage, Exposure, Press, Publicity
- 🟦 Things That Are Towed: Barge, Glider, Trailer, Water Skier
- 🟪 Brain ___: Freeze, Teaser, Trust, Waves
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,251, which had a difficulty rating of 2.3 out of 5.
I started with water words first. Surf, waves and water skier looked like the obvious beach set, but there was no fourth, so I jumped off that boat.
Teaser and trailer jumped out as movie promos, so I tried finding more links for them, to no avail. Then I saw press, coverage, exposure and publicity, which are things I deal with as a member of the media all the time, and I locked that in.
As an avid internet user, surf finally made sense connected with browse, scroll and search.
From there, I had to pause and think for a minute before noticing the towing connection with Barge, Glider, Trailer and Water Skier, which only left me with purple and the Brain section.
