Connections Unlimited guide: find precise groups of four
Sixteen words can suggest many connections, but each submitted group needs four words that fit the intended category. Test the category before spending a guess.
Back to the game →Understand this version's puzzle bank
Select four words and submit them. A correct group is removed from the unsolved words. Four wrong submissions end the round. Once you solve three groups, the remaining group is completed automatically.
OnlinePuzzle uses its own language-specific puzzle banks. These are not the New York Times daily answers, and switching languages is not a word-for-word translation of your current puzzle. Unlimited play means you can start another puzzle, not that the finite bank can never repeat.
Name the relationship before selecting
Read all sixteen words once. For a promising group, complete the sentence ‘All four are…’ with a narrow definition. Four words loosely associated with a kitchen may be weaker than four specific types of cookware.
Look for a fifth plausible member. If one exists, do not choose four arbitrarily. A word may have a second meaning or belong to an expression. Try moving that ambiguous word to another possible category and see whether both groups become more precise.
Worked example: seasons versus a month
SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN and WINTER form the category ‘seasons’. MARCH belongs to the calendar too, but it is a month, so it cannot replace one of these four under that exact definition.
This is an original teaching example, not an answer to the board you are playing. The useful habit is to test every member against the same definition. Do not change your explanation halfway through just to make a tempting fourth word fit.
One precise category
Use one-away feedback without guessing blindly
One-away feedback means three selected words belong to one unsolved group. It does not identify which word is the outsider. Write down the category you were testing, then check which words genuinely satisfy it before substituting one.
A one-away submission still spends a mistake. The same four words in a different order are not a new idea; repeated groups are rejected. Shuffle can make a different association easier to see, but it does not change the categories.
Recover when two categories overlap
Set aside the ambiguous category and solve a clearer one first. Removing four words reduces the competing possibilities. Check the leftovers too: a proposed group is more convincing when the remaining words still have plausible partners.
If you use a hint, read it as information about the category and rebuild your candidates. After a round, read the explanations for missed groups. Learning the exact relation is more useful than memorizing a list of answers from a different puzzle.