NYT Connections hint and answers today: September 21 (#102)

Whether you want to save a rough game of Connections with instant access to today's answers or would rather read a few hints for the September 21 (#102) game, everything you need to win your way is only a quick scroll away.

Today's yellow Connections came in seconds for me—it's just a shame about all the rest. I almost had every single one, the only issue was I kept getting bits of one of the others muddled up in there too. I just barely scraped through this one, although it was a very close call towards the end. As always with Connections, it all looks obvious in hindsight!

NYT Connections hint today: Thursday, September 21

One helping hand, coming right up. 

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Yellow: Meals out need these hardworking people to make them happen. 

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Green: Engine-powered transport is the theme here. 

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Blue: It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights, it's time to meet the…? 

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Purple: There are a million ways of describing hands, feet, or parts of them—including these words. 

Don't scroll any further until you're ready for the full answers!

NYT Connections answer today: Thursday, September 21 (#102) 

Go on, save your game—we won't tell anyone. 

• ???? Yellow: Bartender, Chef, Host, Server (Restaurant workers) 
• ???? Green: Bus, Car, Motorcycle, Truck (Motor vehicles) 
• ???? Blue: Animal Beaker, Gonzo, Scooter (Muppets) 
• ???? Purple: Digit, Dog, Mitt, Piggy (Hand and foot related slang) 

More about the New York Times' Connections puzzle game

Connections is the NYT's latest popular puzzle game where you have to find the common thread that ties four seemingly unrelated words together. Can you find all four increasingly challenging groups of words before you make four mistakes? Don't forget: every day only has one solution even if some words look like they could belong to more than one group, and you can (and should) shuffle the grid as many times as you need to. It can help jog your brain into reading the words in a different way.

If you enjoy Connections, you should check out the board game Codenames. It's a popular party game that tasks players with using clues to guess certain words from a grid. As in Connections, the heart of the game lies in how many different possible interpretations the words could have. Connections also clearly owes a debt to Wordle, the hit puzzle game that the New York Times bought in 2022. Perhaps most obvious is the way it uses colored emojis to let you share the results of your puzzle with other players on social media: 

Connections
Puzzle #80

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Each color corresponds to one grouping of four words; a row with mixed colors shows you incorrectly guessed one or more words in a group that didn't totally match. The rows also show what order you solved the Connections puzzle in. The rows aren't all created equal: the New York Times ranks them from "straightforward" to "tricky" starting with yellow and progressing to purple.

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Want to show up your Connections friends or just challenge yourself? Try to start by identifying the purple words first and nailing them with your very first guess!