Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on April 27 for puzzle #686 are a little easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.2 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.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #685, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #686. 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.
Today's Connections words are: Massage, Times, Ruffle, Fish, Percent, Shock, Meatball, Goldfish, Combo, Lock, Equals, Thatch, Chef, Minus, Tuft, Taki
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Calculator buttons
- 🟩 Green: Amounts of hair
- 🟦 Blue: Salty snack unit
- 🟪 Purple: Swedish ___
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: Grab some snacks, a TI-89, and a new ‘do before heading to Ikea.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #686?
Drumroll, please…
- 🟨 Calculator buttons: Equals, Minus, Percent, Times
- 🟩 Amounts of hair: Lock, Shock, Thatch, Tuft
- 🟦 Salty snack unit: Combo, Goldfish, Ruffle, Taki
- 🟪 Swedish ___: Chef, Fish, Massage, Meatball
I must have been hungry doing today's puzzle, because once I saw Taki I knew chips had to be in play. I went searching for other flavors, and scooped up Goldfish, Ruffle, and Combo to round out the blue category.
After that I saw the (admittedly much easier) connection between Equals, Minus, Percent, and Times to score today's yellow category.
I was floundering for a bit before I latched on to Thatch and Tuft. I figured we were in the ballpark of coiffures, and when I remembered the phrase “Shock of hair” that all but sealed the deal. Lock took me an embarrassing amount of time to recognize, but with it I got green.
That left Massage, Meatball, Chef, and Fish as today's rote fill, and though I didn't get the connection while I was solving the puzzle, with all four of those clues side by side, it immediately became obvious.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Tint: Color, hue, shade, tone
- 🟩 Valley: Dale, dell, glen, hollow
- 🟦 Bobs: Dole, Hope, Marley, Ross
- 🟪 Color anagrams: Dre, gary, genre, lube
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #685, which had a difficulty rating of 3.3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
I got going with the Bobs thanks to Marley which lead me to Bob Dole, I don't know why. Then I got Ross and Hope.
I saw tints next with color, hue, shade, and tone.
Dale and glen stuck out to me next, which led to dell and hollow. I was thinking forests forgetting that all of those are technically valleys.
And we ended with color anagrams; dre (red), gary (gray), genre (green), and lube (blue).
