Today's NYT Connections hints and answers — Thursday, January 25, #228

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Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on January 25 for puzzle #228 are a little trickier than yesterday's, 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. And if the hints aren't enough, you'll find all 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #227, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #228. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.

Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

Today'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.

If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:

🟨 Yellow: Trending terms
🟩 Green: Universal conversation
🟦 Blue: A fiscal handslap
🟪 Purple: Body language

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.

Alright then, here's a larger hint: Keep an eye out for buzzwords but don't get fined while you let your intuition guide you to the graphically obvious. Remember that sometimes, the answer is as close as the tip of your tongue—or the end of your nose.

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #228?

Drumroll, please...

🟨 Of-the-moment: Big, hot, in, popular
🟩 Pictograph: Character, glyph, icon, symbol
🟦 Impose, as a penalty: Assess, charge, fine, levy
🟪 Words beginning with body parts: Handsome, hippo, legend, lipid

In today's Connections puzzle, words like Handsome, Legeny, Popular, and Icon glittered before me like stars on a red carpet, each vying for the spotlight of relevancy. I felt like a talent scout carefully picking out the words that'd play lead in my next movie.

Amidst the flashbulbs and chatter, the solitary Hippo certainly caught my eye—a creature very much out of water here, I thought. What could it possibly pair with?

But first, I turned my attention to ancient scripts and digital avatars. Glyph matched with Symbol, then Icon, and finally, Character nestled in, crafting the green category of pictographs on the wall with the precision of a long-forgotten scribe.

Next came the stern umpires of the puzzle, Charge, Fine, Levy, and (in my opinion) their rather distant cousin, Assess. They demanded compensation, completing the blue category with an authoritative stamp of penalties.

Lastly, I circled back to that Hippo, which wallowed patiently beside Legend, Lipid, and Handsome. I admit it took a few minutes for the penny to drop as I saw past their disguises, revealing the anatomy hidden in their prefixes—Hand, Hip, Leg, and Lip. The purple category unearthed, a clever play on words that began with body parts.

With a final flourish, the red carpet was rolled up, and the puzzle stood complete.

Yesterday's Connections answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #227, which had a difficulty rating of 2.4 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

The words Clock, Calculator, Calendar, and Camera immediately got my attention today, their 'C' badges gleaming like app icons. These digital assistants, all nestled comfortably in my smartphone, bring structure to my chaotic days, and they came together today to make up the yellow category.

Out of the corner of my eye, familial monikers beckoned—Mum, Dada, and Grammy waved, vying for attention. A dilemma soon presented itself: should Pate or Poppy be added to this roster? After a brief flirtation with the thought of a multilingual twist, logic won out, and Poppy was rightfully included for the perfect family portrait.

The blue category materialized as if a vision test chart gradually sharpened before me. Lens, Iris, Pupil, and Cone, all components of the human eye, aligned to form a clear and distinct group.

🟨 Smartphone features beginning with "c": Calculator, calendar, camera, clock
🟩 Familiar nicknames: Dada, Grammy, Mum, Poppy
🟦 Parts of the eye: Cone, iris, lens, pupil
🟪 Words pronounced differently with accent marks: Expose, pate, resume, rose

That left me with a curious collection: Pate, Resume, Expose, and Rose. As I mulled over their link, the epiphany struck—each word transformed when adorned with an accent mark, their pronunciations and meanings acquiring a dash of continental sophistication. With this insight, the purple category was triumphantly decoded.

Just like that, the puzzle stood solved, a gallery of words that spanned from pixels to pupils, from affection to articulation.

Richard is a technology writer with over 20 years experience in website development, marketing, and SEO. A graduate in Computer Science, he has lectured in Java programming and built software for companies including Samsung and Walmart. Richard writes for TechRadar, IT Pro, Tom's Guide, and PC Gamer.