Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on December 16 for puzzle #554 are a smidge easier compared to yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.3 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, #553, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #554. 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: Light Bulb, Snowball, Ham, Chicken, Pillow, Yodel, Bar, Food, Knock-Knock, Walkie-Talkie, Ding Dong, Water Balloon, Satellite, Devil Dog, Am HoHo
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Types of radio
- 🟩 Green: Kinds of play fights
- 🟦 Blue: Snack cakes
- 🟪 Purple: Classic joke staples
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: Think back to childhood spats, cafeteria staples, and joke books while you're on the air.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #554?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Types of radio: Am, Ham, Satellite, Walkie-talkie
- 🟩 Kinds of play fights: Food, Pillow, Snowball, Water Balloon
- 🟦 Snack cakes: Devil Dog, Ding Dong, Hoho, Yodel
- 🟪 Classic Joke Staples: Bar, Chicken, Knock-Knock, Light Bulb
Despite being ranked a bit lower than Sunday's puzzle, today's puzzle was a doozy for me. I must have been hungry, because what stuck out to me first were all the snack food names: Devil Dog, Ding Dong, Hoho, and Yodel. Though I first struck out by trying to include Snowball (turns out the Hostess snack drops the "w" in the name).
After that I floundered for a bit trying to find another use for Snowball when Food, Pillow, and Water Balloon finally caught my attention as other forms of playing war on a pint-size scale.
Next came the purple category. Something told me Knock-Knock and Chicken had to be related, but it wasn't until I started brainstorming other dad joke set-ups that Bar and Light Bulb popped out.
That left, surprisingly, the easiest category as today's rote fill with Am, Ham, Satellite, and Walkie-Talkie.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Spices: Clove, Mace, Nutmeg, Pepper
- 🟩 Perform poorly: Flail, Flop, Flounder, Tank
- 🟦 Skim through as pages: Flip, Leaf, Riffle, Thumb
- 🟪 Pop singers minus 'S': Key, Mar, Spear, Style
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #553, which had a difficulty rating of 3.4 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
The first words that stuck out to me in yesterday's puzzle were the most violent ones: Mace, Flail, and Spear. But when I couldn't find a fourth to complete the arsenal, I suspected I may have fallen for a red herring. And I was right! Once I saw Nutmeg, Clove, and Pepper, it hit me that the Connections Crew meant the spice Mace, not the clobbering kind.
Riffle stood out next (I mistook it for rifle at first), and I've only ever heard it used in terms of searching through books, so Flip, Leaf, and Thumb were easy enough to pick up.
Flail, Flop, and Flounder came next because of the alliteration, with Tank rounding out the category.
That left purple as today's rote fill with Key, Mar, Spear, and Style — all pop star names made singular by subtracting the 's' at the end.
