Today's puzzle is not about an orange mascot. Otherwise you'll be fine.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for August 18 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,164. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,163, 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
- Red Carpet
- Film Noir
- Basketball
- Private Jet
- Sweet Potato
- Sandpaper
- Velevet Rope
- Flyers Mascot
- Practical Joke
- Limousine
- Traffic Cone
- Petroleum Jelly
- Orangutan
- Cowboy Coffee
- Poetic Justice
- Paparazzi
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: The big show
- 🟩 Green: P to J
- 🟦 Blue: Anaranjado
- 🟪 Purple: A bit sandy
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: Seen at a movie premiere
- 🟩 Green: PJs
- 🟦 Blue: Things that are orange
- 🟪 Purple: Things that are gritty
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 18 for puzzle #1,164 are harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.3 out of 5.
- 🟨 Seen at a movie premiere: Limousine, paparazzi, red carpet, velvet rope
- 🟩 PJs: Petroleum jelly, poetic justice, practical joke, private jet
- 🟦 Things that are orange: Basketball, orangutan, sweet potato, traffic cone
- 🟪 Things that are gritty: Cowboy coffee, film noir, flyers mascot, sandpaper
I took like three strikes in a row where I refused to not put the Flyers mascot in the orange set. Anyway, eventually I pulled my head out and slotted in basketball, orangutan, sweet potato and traffic cone.
Solving the Gritty problem got me to the Flyers mascot, sandpaper, cowboy coffee and, after a moment, film noir.
The PJs stuck out at this point, so I put together poetic justice, practical joke, private jet and petroleum jelly.
This left limousine, paparazzi, red carpet and velvet rope as my final four at the movies.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 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
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,164, which had a difficulty rating of 1.8 out of 5.
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 much, 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.
