If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Friday, February 9, 2024, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for February 9, NYT Connections #243! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.
If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.
Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!
Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle
Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:
Yellow category - Find these next to “pause” and “play”
Green category - Put on TV.
Blue category - Things to do in the drawing room? (I’ll see myself out.)
Purple category - You might have to be really bad at counting and spelling for this one to make sense.
BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!
We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)
A heads up about the tricky parts
This is a hard one, folks. I solved it, but it took forever, and I wanted to throw my laptop out a window. I hope you’ll have better luck than me.
ETHER does not refer to ethernet, nor to the early surgical anesthetic, nor the concept of an invisible air-like substance called the æther. Its meaning is irrelevant to solving today’s puzzle.
SCREEN, NET, and CURTAIN are all rectangles of cloth you can hang up for a specific purpose, but CURTAIN is the only one that has a meaning in that sense today.
What are the categories in today’s Connections?
Yellow: MUSIC PLAYER BUTTONS
Green: BROADCAST
Blue: THINGS YOU CAN DRAW
Purple: NUMBER ANAGRAMS
DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW
Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.
What are the yellow words in today’s Connections?
The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is MUSIC PLAYER BUTTONS and the words are: REWIND, SHUFFLE, SKIP, STOP.
What are the green words in today’s Connections?
The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is BROADCAST and the words are: AIR, RUN, SCREEN, SHOW.
What are the blue words in today’s Connections?
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is THINGS YOU CAN DRAW and the words are: BATH, CARD, CURTAIN, PICTURE.
What are the purple words in today’s Connections?
The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is NUMBER ANAGRAMS and the words are: EON, ETHER, NET, TOW.
How I solved today’s Connections
This was a tough one to get started on. I finally settled on SKIP as a control button, and paired it with STOP, REWIND, and…RUN? One away! Okay, what about SHUFFLE? That was it. 🟨
You can take a PICTURE, take a CARD, take a BATH. I threw in AIR. One away! These have been getting tough lately. Wish I could go look up a hints page. What could ETHER mean except the anesthetic or the concept of an indescribable vapor? What is an EON except a span of time?
Eventually my husband wandered into the room and I had him take a look. “Well, you can draw a CURTAIN, and you can draw a PICTURE,” he said—and I realized that was the exact group I’d missed. Draw, not take. 🟦
It took a good long stare before I got so out of ideas that I thought about doing anagrams of the words. EON could be one, and TOW could be two. NET was obviously ten, but there aren’t any other possibilities…except, wait! ETHER is three. 🟪 I think I’m madder about this being in the puzzle than I am proud about solving it. I feel exactly like that woman in the Reductress headline who is “irritated annoyed peeved irked.”
Now that I have the last four in front of me, they’re all verbs meaning to SHOW a movie. 🟩 Ugh. I will take my “solid” score and go home.
Connections Puzzle #243 🟩🟨🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟩🟦🟦 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩
How to play Connections
I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:
First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Crossword app. You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).
Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.
You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.
How to win Connections
The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.
If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.
Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!