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Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on April 10 for puzzle #1,034 are harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.8 out of 5.
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.
Article continues belowToday's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Unlike our guide to today's Wordle answer, where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, 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.
Today's Connections words are:
- Gonzo
- Nutty
- Carolina Reaper
- Jack-in-the-box
- Sonic
- Firm
- Toaster
- Chipotle
- Bell Pepper
- Ejector Seat
- Swiss
- Pop-up book
- Genie
- Holey
- Pepperoncino
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Peppers
- 🟩 Green: Things that pop up
- 🟦 Blue: Descriptors for Swiss cheese
- 🟪 Purple: Blue characters
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.
Here's a larger hint: Peppers pop in blue swiss cheese.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #1,034?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Peppers: Bell pepper, carolina pepper, chipotle, pepperoncino
- 🟩 Things that pop up: Ejector seat, jack-in-the-box, pop-up book, toaster
- 🟦 Descriptors for swiss cheese: Firm, holey, nutty, swiss
- 🟪 Blue characters: Blue, genie, gonzo, sonic
I don't think I've ever been as mad at a Connections puzzle as I am/was with today's grid. This is because the category titles, or at least one of the words, is directly a clue in every single set.
No, it's not verboten, but to me it feels gross, and I guess like cheating. Kind of like how in crosswords you can't clue using the word in the tease or in nearby clues.
Anyway, initially, I spotted the fast food trap with Jack in the box, Chipotle and Sonic, but it falls apart there.
Anyway, I went with the cheese descriptors to start in firm, holey, nutty and swiss. I did take a moment to look for types of cheese with blue and swiss but like the fast food, it didn't work.
The green set I snagged next were the popping words with ejector seat, pop-up book, jack in the box and toaster. It was here that I clicked on the clues and answers having the same word annoyance.
Which is why I took the purple Blue characters next starting with Blue, then Gonzo, sonic and genie.
And I wrapped it up with the peppers of the bell, carolina reaper, chipotle and pepperoncino varieties (two words with pepper! ugh). They could have done banana, bell, chipotle, and carolina reaper to be at least a little cheekier, and I don't believe it would have lost anything.
Thumbs down on today's puzzle.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Gloomy: Blue, dark, down, low
- 🟩 Ointment: Balm, cream, paste, rub
- 🟦 Zodiac symbols: Archer, fish, goat, ram
- 🟪 Muscular, minus "ed" sound: Jack, rip, shred, yoke
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1033, which had a difficulty rating of 1.8 out of 5.
The first thought I had when I spotted yoke was the slang "yoked." I wasn't purple hunting, but I wasn't going to drop the swole terminology as I snagged jack(ed), rip(ped), and shred(ded).
I snagged rub, cream, paste and balm next, though I was initially thinking of cooking terms not ointments.
The Zodiac symbols finally clicked for me here with archer, fish, goat and ram.
Which left, down, low, dark and blue as my gloomy final four.
Connections tips — how to win at Connections
There are two ways to play Connections, get the answers as you solve them or solve for the hardest group, Purple, first.
For either playstyle, the best tip I can give is to not be afraid of the shuffle button, especially if you’ve solved a set but you’re certain it isn’t the Purple group. You can shuffle the grid until your solved quartet is in a somewhat staked off area.
For the purple group, you can expect to see a handful of category types: words missing a letter, homophones, words with specific suffixes or prefixes, and [blank] word (or word [blank]). There are others, but this is a majority of what you’ll see. It can help to look for purple connections through one of those lenses.
If you’re not hunting for purple specifically, then the best advice I have is to look for smaller connections. For example, Riddler and Joker are Batman villains. Once you’ve grouped that duo together it’s easier to find another set.
Finally, watch out for traps. Occasionally, the Connections makers like to throw in a set of words that should seem very obvious to most people. But picking them can give you a strike, something you want to save for when you aren’t really sure between a couple of clues.
The tricky bit is that sometimes the very obvious foursome is actually one of the answers (usually the yellow or green levels).
One way to work around this is to note the four clues you think are an obvious set. Highlight them by selecting the words but don’t hit submit. From there take a second look around the grid to see if anything else stands out to you.
Often these super obvious sets are actually individually spread out between the four groups. So, if you see Wick, Neo, Ted and Mnemonic, you might immediately think of Keanu Reeves movies, but it's a trick. Instead, use the individual words as launching points to discover other connections.
If you're new to the game you should also take a look at our How to play Connections guide.
Got some thoughts about today's puzzle you want to share? Email us at scott.younker@futurenet.com or alyse.stanley@futurenet.com to get in touch.
