Sunday, January 18 Clues And Answers (#952)

We’re past the halfpoint in January and 2026 feels like it’s already flying by, though I’m not too concerned with that in the winter. I’m ready for warmer weather and we haven’t even had much snow yet.

If you’re looking for help with today’s Connections, look no further. Below, you’ll find extra hints, clues and the answers for each of the four Connections categories.

Be sure to also check out my latest weekend streaming guide for all the best new TV shows and movies out on Netflix, Apple TV, Prime Video and the myriad other streaming services we subscribe to these days. You can also check out the rest of my guides for Wordle, Pips and Strands on my blog.

Time to group some words, Connectioneers!

If you’re looking for Saturday’s Connections guide, it’s right here.

How To Play Connections

Connections is the second-most popular NYT Games puzzle game outside of the main crossword itself, and an extremely fun, free offering that will get your brain moving every day. Play it right here.

The goal is to take a group of 16 words and find links between four pairs of four of them. They could be specific categories of terms, or they could be little world puzzles where words may come before or after them you need to figure out. And they get more complicated from there.

There is only one set of right answers for this, and you only get a certain number of tries so you can’t just spam around until you find something. There are difficulty tiers coded by color, which will usually go from yellow, blue/green to purple as difficulty increases, so know that going in and when you start linking them together.

You pick the four words you think are linked and either you will get a solve and a lit up row that shows you how you were connected. If you’re close, it will tell you that you’re one away. Again, four mistakes you lose, but if you want to know the answers without failing, either come here, or delete your web cookies and try again. If you want to play more puzzles, you can get an NYT Games subscription to access the full archives of all past puzzles.

Connections Tips & Tricks

A few suggestions for success with your daily Connections.

First off, look for red herrings. These are words that seem to be connected, but are often part of some or each of the other groups. One way to spot these is if you come up with more than four. Words with double meanings – Blackberry could be part of a “fruit” group or tech companies; Palm could be a part of the hand or a type of tree – are often included in these misdirects.

Second, writing words out on paper can be very helpful. Something about the act of writing them out can cause your brain to form connections (this also applies to Strands when trying to unscramble words).

Finally, sound out words or think about them in terms of how they’re spelled or pronounced. Often, connections are made via homophones (or similar sounding words like “Mousse” and “Moose”) or there are secret words hidden within (“red” found within “bread”). If you’re having trouble making a connection, think about the words more mechanically – do they have silent letters? – or would they connect if another word was added to the front or back (Capitan and Dorado connect with the word “El” in front).

NYT Connections Hints And Answers – Sunday, January 18

Below, we’ll get into some extra hints for each Connections group – Yellow, Blue, Green and Purple – and then the official clues and answers.

Here are today’s Connections words:

• Peck
• Webbing
• Synopsis
• Grant
• Damage
• Bill
• Title
• Wreck
• Feathers
• Quote
• Cooper
• Total
• Wings
• Author
• Price
• Break

An Extra Hint for Each Connections Group

Here’s an extra hint to help you solve each Connections group today:

• 🟡Yellow group – Quack, quack.
• 🔵Blue group – This one’s for the book readers (of physical books, anyways).
• 🟢Green group – The opposite of build.
• 🟣Purple group – Classic stars.

One Word for Each Connections Group:

Here’s one word from each group to help get you started:

• 🟡Yellow group – Bill
• 🔵Blue group – Author
• 🟢Green group – Break
• 🟣Purple group – Cooper

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Alright, the full spoilers follow here as we get into what the groups are today:

• 🟡Yellow group – Features of a duck.
• 🔵Blue group – Found on a book jacket.
• 🟢Green group – Destroy.
• 🟣Purple group – Classic Hollywood Actors.

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

The full-on answers are below for each group, finally inserting the four words in each category. Spoilers follow if you do not want to get this far. The Connections answers are:

• 🟡Yellow group – bill, feathers, webbing, wings
• 🔵Blue group – author, quote, synopsis, title
• 🟢Green group – break, damage, total, wreck
• 🟣Purple group – (Gary) Cooper, (Cary) Grant, (Gregory) Peck, (Vincent) Price

This was a pretty straightforward Strands. I suppose a couple words could have been seen as misleading. PECK – a Purple word – might go with FEATHERS or WINGS, for instance. TOTAL – a Green word – sounds a bit like SYNOPSIS, though that’s a stretch.

I pretty much solved each of these in the “correct” order and didn’t get any wrong guesses, which was kind of nice. The Yellow group, filled with duck anatomy, was the easiest by far, but the Blue group and its book jacket words, though I didn’t exactly think of a book jacket, came together shortly after. I knew it had something to do with publishing or papers.

The Green group is “Destroy” but it sounds more like what happens in a car accident. TOTAL your car in a WRECK and all that. Which left me with Purple, and this seemed pretty obvious once those were the only words left. Out of Gary COOPER, Cary GRANT, Gregory PECK and Vincent PRICE, I’d have to say Cary Grant is my favorite. But I was raised on old Cary Grant movies like Father Goose and Arsenic and Old Lace. Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart are the GOATs.

How did you do on today’s Connections? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Find more guides to Wordle, Strands and the Mini Crossword on my blog where you can also follow me for TV and movie and video game coverage. Let me know if you have any fun puzzle games in your rotation that I should try.