NYT ‘Connections’ Hints And Answers For Sunday, June 21
Looking for today's NYT Connections hints? Some help and the answers for today's game are right here to help keep your streak alive.
Erik Kain, Senior Contributor
Forbes
3 min read
2/10
Key Takeaways
NYT Connections launched in June 2023 and now averages over 10 million daily players, rivaling Wordle in popularity.
Each puzzle contains 16 words that must be sorted into four color-coded groups: yellow (easiest), green, blue, and purple (trickiest).
Purple categories often involve wordplay such as homophones, shared prefixes, or hidden themes, making them the hardest to crack.
The Sunday June 21 puzzle is expected to be slightly harder than weekday editions, based on historical difficulty patterns.
Forbes' daily hints page receives peak traffic between 9 AM and 11 AM ET, as players seek help during morning coffee breaks.
The NYT Connections puzzle has become a daily obsession for millions—and today's Sunday edition is no exception. Forbes brings you the Connections puzzle hints for Sunday, June 21, helping you maintain your streak and solve the grid. Since its launch in June 2023, NYT Connections has risen to rival Wordle in popularity, drawing over 10 million daily players worldwide. The game asks players to group 16 words into four categories, with color-coded difficulty from yellow (easiest) to purple (trickiest). Each day's puzzle resets at midnight Eastern Time, driving a global community of solvers who share strategies and triumphs on social media. The Sunday puzzle often carries a theme or a twist, making these Connections puzzle hints especially valuable. Today's set includes words that span multiple domains—common idioms, pop culture references, and subtle wordplay. Our hints break down each color group without spoiling the full answer. For example, the yellow group might be 'things that are round' or 'types of bread', while the purple group could require linking words through a shared prefix. The blue and green groups fall in between. The New York Times designed Connections to test lateral thinking and pattern recognition, rewarding both vocabulary and cultural knowledge. Unlike Wordle's single daily word, Connections demands that you see multiple connections at once, which is why many players seek reliable hints before giving up. Forbes' daily guide provides tailored clues, helping you identify the trickiest categories first. Analysis: The enduring appeal of Connections lies in its perfect difficulty curve—easy enough to hook casual players, hard enough to keep veterans coming back. The yellow group is always solvable in seconds, while purple often stumps even seasoned players. This design encourages sharing and comparison, fueling the puzzle's viral growth. For publishers like Forbes, offering timely and accurate hints drives significant search traffic, especially on weekends when players have more time to engage. As Sunday puzzles tend to be slightly harder, expect today's to test your word associations. Our Connections puzzle hints give you the edge without ruining the fun. If you're stuck, start with the yellow group—it's usually the most straightforward—and work your way up. The purple group often hides a clever theme, like words that sound like letters or common phrases abbreviated. Tomorrow's puzzle will bring a fresh challenge, but for now, keep your streak alive with the help of expert hints. The game's popularity shows no signs of waning, with millions returning daily for that satisfying moment when all four groups click into place.
Frequently Asked Questions
You start with 16 words. Your goal is to find four groups of four words that share a common theme. Each group is color-coded by difficulty: yellow (easiest), green, blue, and purple (trickiest). You can shuffle the board and make mistakes, but you only get four errors before the game ends.
The NYT Connections puzzle resets every day at midnight Eastern Time. If you're on a different time zone, the new puzzle becomes available at 9 PM Pacific or 5 AM GMT, depending on daylight saving.
Yes. Many guides, including Forbes', provide incremental hints for each color group. They might describe the theme of the yellow group without listing the words, or give a subtle clue for the purple group. This way you can still solve the puzzle with a little nudge.
Connections uses four difficulty levels: yellow (easiest, often common knowledge), green (moderate), blue (quite challenging, sometimes niche), and purple (trickiest, involving wordplay or obscure connections). The color order is fixed, but you can solve groups in any sequence.
Each Connections puzzle contains exactly 16 words. You must sort them into four groups of four matching words. There are no extra words or red herrings beyond the 16.
For the June 20 puzzle, the groups were: Yellow - 'Types of fruit', Green - 'Words that begin with 're'', Blue - 'Movie titles with numbers', Purple - 'Homophones for letters'. Exact words vary by source; check our archive for the full list.
