The Wednesday edition of NYT Connections arrives with puzzle #948, serving up a grid that rewards business vocabulary and seasonal wordplay. Today's challenge particularly favors those who can distinguish between corporate terminology and weather-related terms while spotting subtle homophone patterns.
What Makes Connections Tick
For newcomers, NYT Connections presents 16 words that must be sorted into four thematic groups of four.
The twist?
You're limited to four mistakes, and the color-coded difficulty system (yellow being easiest, purple being trickiest) means surface-level connections often mislead.
Since its June 2023 launch, Connections has carved out its niche in the Times' puzzle ecosystem, standing alongside Wordle and the crossword as a daily ritual for millions of players worldwide.
The game's genius lies in its red herrings, words that could fit multiple categories but belong in only one.
Today's Grid at a Glance
Here are the 16 words staring back at you in puzzle #948:
FROSTY | SNOWMAN | AUCTION | RAINMAKER
FIRM | MOVIE | CLIENT | MISTLETOE
FAST | PARTNER | SECURE | ACCOUNT
USER | TREATMENT | TIGHT | CONSUMER
A seemingly random collection that somehow connects into four perfect categories.
Strategic Hints (No Spoilers Yet)
Yellow Category Nudge: Think about words that describe stability or strength in business contexts.
Green Category Clue: Consider who receives products, services, or attention in various industries.
Blue Category Hint: Look for terms that begin with weather conditions or are associated with specific seasons.
Purple Category Teaser: These words can be preceded by "silent" to form common phrases, though the connection is more subtle than it appears.
The Full Solutions
Last chance to solve independently: answers below
---
---
---
---
---
Yellow (Fixed): FAST, FIRM, SECURE, TIGHT
These four words all describe something that is stable, strong, or firmly in place.
In business contexts, they're often used to describe secure arrangements, tight deadlines, firm commitments, or fast decisions that are locked in.
Green (Receiver of Goods or Services): ACCOUNT, CLIENT, CONSUMER, USER
This category groups terms for people or entities that receive products, services, or attention.
An account receives banking services, a client receives professional services, a consumer receives goods, and a user receives access to systems or products.
Blue (Starting With Weather Conditions): FROSTY, MISTLETOE, RAINMAKER, SNOWMAN
Each word begins with a weather condition: frosty (frost), mistletoe (mist), rainmaker (rain), and snowman (snow).
The seasonal connection is particularly clever, with mistletoe and snowman adding holiday flavor to the weather theme.
Purple (Silent ____): AUCTION, MOVIE, PARTNER, TREATMENT
These words can follow "silent" to form common phrases: silent auction, silent movie, silent partner, and silent treatment.
The purple category's difficulty comes from requiring players to think about the words as the second part of two-word phrases rather than standalone terms.
The Verdict
Puzzle #948 registers as moderate difficulty with a sting in the tail.
Yellow falls quickly for anyone who recognizes synonym clusters describing stability, while green requires thinking about business relationships and service recipients.
Blue separates the seasonal thinkers from the literalists with its clever weather-prefix pattern.
Purple, predictably, is the streak-ender - that "silent" phrase construction won't reveal itself without serious lateral thinking about common two-word expressions.
The real trap lies in words like "account" and "partner" that could easily fit multiple categories - "account" could connect with business terms in yellow, while "partner" might seem to belong with "client" and "consumer" in green.
Similarly, "frosty" and "snowman" might initially appear to connect with "mistletoe" as holiday terms, but the actual weather-prefix connection is more specific.
Reset and Repeat
Tomorrow's puzzle drops at midnight in your timezone.
Until then, reflect on today's performance: did you spot the weather prefixes immediately, or did the "silent" phrases catch you off guard?
The beauty lies not in perfection but in training your brain to spot these hidden patterns.
For now, puzzle #948 is solved.
See you at midnight for round #949.
