If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Saturday, March 2, 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 March 2, NYT Connections #265! 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 - Spy.
Green category - Parts of a poem.
Blue category - Say it without exactly saying it.
Purple category - Brought to you by the letter…
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
There’s a devious one here for purple, in the form of a “what ___ may mean”.
A FOOT is not a body part today, and a MOLE is not an animal (or a beauty mark). Knowing the metric system will help with one of the categories, but METER is not in that category!
And, just to make things a little more interesting, INTIMATE and COUCH are both verbs today.
What are the categories in today’s Connections?
Yellow: INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVE
Green: UNITS IN POETRY
Blue: EXPRESS INDIRECTLY
Purple: WHAT “K” MIGHT MEAN
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 INTELLIGENCE OPERATIVE and the words are: AGENT, ASSET, MOLE, SLEEPER.
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 UNITS IN POETRY and the words are: FOOT, LINE, METER, VERSE.
What are the blue words in today’s Connections?
The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is EXPRESS INDIRECTLY and the words are: COUCH, IMPLY, INTIMATE, SUGGEST.
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 WHAT “K” MIGHT MEAN and the words are: KELVIN, OKAY, POTASSIUM, THOUSAND.
How I solved today’s Connections
KELVIN is a unit of temperature. Aero degrees Celsius is equivalent to 273 KELVIN, and no it’s not “degrees KELVIN,” it’s just KELVIN. But there are no other temperature scales on the board today.
There is POTASSIUM, though, and it’s represented by the atomic symbol K. (Not P, because that’s phosphorus.) KELVIN is also abbreviated with a K. We might be onto something. In the metric system, k (lowercase) stands for kilo-, a prefix meaning one THOUSAND. (A 5K race is five kilometers, or 5,000 meters.) And finally, stretching out of the scientific realm, “k” can be a terse response to a text. 🟪
Moving out of chemistry class and into literature, it’s time to deconstruct some poetry. What can VERSE go with? A poem has its METER, which is defined as the pattern of syllables in a LINE. Each rhythmic line is divided into feet, as in the “iamb” of iambic pentameter (Shakespeare’s fave), so this group includes FOOT. 🟩
Once we’re down to the last one, I can see where they’re going with INTIMATE. It’s not an adjective, but a verb. In that sense, it’s a synonym of IMPLY or SUGGEST; you might COUCH such a message in polite language. 🟦
Finally, we have the spies: a MOLE, a SLEEPER AGENT, an, um, AGENT, and an ASSET. 🟨
Connections Puzzle #265 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨
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 Games app (formerly the 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!