Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on February 12 for puzzle #246 begin the week considerably tougher than they ended them, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 4.1 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 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #245, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #246. 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: Technical hiccups
- 🟩 Green: Matching uniform
- 🟦 Blue: Arabian nights
- 🟪 Purple: Features less than the sum of its parts
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.
Alright then, here's a larger hint: Today's Connections should come to you quickly if you imagine yourself sitting comfortably in a movie theatre with popcorn in hand. For the full magic carpet ride, think of one famous movie in particular, set in the fictional city of Agrabah.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #246?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Bad things for a video call to do: Drop, Echo, Freeze, Lag
- 🟩 Costumes with striped shirts: Mime, Prisoner, Referee, Sailor
- 🟦 Seen in "Aladdin": Genie, Monkey, Parrot, Princess
- 🟪 Movies minus numbers: Apollo, Candles, Fantastic, Samurai
With Nemo among yesterday's Connections answers, I must have had Disney on the brain as I immediately connected Monkey, Parrot, Genie, and Candles, thinking of talking animals and objects from Disney films. It was an incorrect answer, but I wasn't too deterred as I was only one away.
Figuring that I may have to hone in on one Disney classic in particular, I subbed out Candles (sorry Beauty and the Beast) in favor of Princess (Aladdin, come on down) and duly completed the Blue category.
Coming hot on the heels of Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas last night, my first thought when it came to the word Referee was the snazzy black and white striped shirts they're famous for wearing. It proved to be a touchdown of a thought, as I soon located Mime, Prisoner, and Sailor to complete the stripy set.
Given how many Zoom and Teams calls I'm engaged on every week, I was a little amazed it took me so long to spot this third theme, though a delay in finding it seemed apt in the end: Drop, Echo, Freeze, and Lag are all unwelcome aspects of a video call, today's yellow category.
That left Apollo, Candles, Fantastic, and Samurai, with the latter two (Fantastic Four and Seventh Samurai) sparking the connection in my brain, adding to Apollo 13 and 16 Candles: movies minus their numbers. And that's a wrap!
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #245, which had a difficulty rating of 2.7 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
In a rare turn of events, I knocked off the trickiest purple category before all of the others, though with no shortage of luck involved in doing so.
My only thought, when combining Auto, Demo, Pluto, and Nemo, was the commonality of their last letter and the similar sound it generates. But when I was informed I was only one away, I looked a little closer. The first three, of course, can be used with "-cracy" to describe a system of governance, while as far as I'm aware Nemocracy is not a government with a sea captain at its helm. Bureau(cracy) though, works nicely. Purple complete.
- 🟨 Monotonous sounds: Buzz, Drone, Hum, Purr
- 🟩 Boats: Barge, Dory, Scow, Sloop
- 🟦 Captains: America, Hook, Morgan, Nemo
- 🟪 Prefixes with -cracy: Auto, Bureau, Demo, Pluto
With Jules Verne's famous seafarer already in my mind, I spotted Hook and Morgan as two other well-known captains. Captain America completes the set, not to mention a fascinating dinner party guest list.
Well immersed in the maritime theme now, I couldn’t help but think of the gentle Drone and Hum of a boat when sleeping within its cabins, while Herman Melville, in Moby Dick, describes the sea as like “hearth-stone cats purring against the gunwale”. And there we have the monotonous sounds of the yellow category: Buzz, Drone, Hum, Purr.
All that remained were Barge, Dory, Scow, and Sloop. The theme for which, by now landlubbers, was all too apparent. They are, of course, types of boats. Hoist the sails and anchors aweigh!
