Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on December 4 for puzzle #542 are the same as yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.8 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers. And if the hints 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, #542, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #542. 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.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Steer
- 🟩 Green: Things with needle/s
- 🟦 Blue: Figures in Greek Myth
- 🟪 Purple: Starting with synonyms for lavatory
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: Steer your way to Greece and avoid the needles and bathroom.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #542?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Steer: Direct, guide, lead, shepherd
- 🟩 Things with needle/s: Compass, pine tree, sewing kit, turntable
- 🟦 Figures in Greek Myth: Atlas, Echo, Helen, Pan
- 🟪 Starting with synonyms for lavatory: Candle, Johnson, loofah, toiletries
Today, we'll steer you toward guide and shepherd which will give you lead and direct for the yellow category.
After that I knew Pan, Atlas, and Helen were a part of Greek myth. I wasn't 100% sure on Echo, mostly because I couldn't recall her story. There are different versions, but I believe her sin was offending Hera.
For a minute I was stuck with green and purple. I had loofah, toiletries and candle for a bathroom theme but wasn't connecting the synonyms idea. I tried turntable and sewing kit but kept getting the one away message. To be honest, putting Johnson in here was a frustration guess with a dash of "wouldn't that be funny." And it was.
Which left the green category and of things with needle(s). Compass, sewing kit, turntable and pine tree. Sure, okay. Either lean into the singular or don't. That's all I have to say there.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #541, which had a difficulty rating of 3.8 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Today was harder, and for me, mostly because of the yellow category.
With my 5 year old watching near daily, it was an easy ride to see Cookie, Count, Oscar and Snuffy as Sesame Street characters, which got me the blue group.
Grammy and Mummy stuck out to me as names for family members, which lead to pop and later cuz which always makes me think of Paul Walker's terrible line reading of the word from 2Fast 2Furious (the worst movie in that franchise).
I got stuck here. I recognized that one of the last two groups was Sopranos, but I've never actually seen the show. Just one of those cultural touchstones that, at this point, I've just not bothered to watch.
What saved me was a couple of context clues. I knew that Edie Falco was in the show and assumed that the puzzle was looking for character names. Also, the EGOT names were clearly one in each category, thus, Emmy would be paired with Edie.
On the other side, I knew Tony would be paired with Junior and Carmela. Why I know those other names is, I assume, pop culture osmosis.
That left, Meadow, Cece, and Katie. Here is where I guessed. I assumed Katie was not a Sopranos name. At this point, I was not seeing the names that sound like letters.
Using this process, I took a strike guessing Cece with the Sopranos grouping. Strike one, but that left Meadow and we were able to lock it down.
And that's how we survived a puzzle where we didn't have enough information about one of the categories, allegedly the easiest.
