Look. We have all been there. You open your phone, the coffee hasn't quite kicked in yet, and you're staring at sixteen words that seem to have absolutely nothing in common. Wyna Liu, the editor behind the NYT Connections puzzle, is particularly good at this. She knows exactly how to lead you down a rabbit hole of "red herrings" that make you want to throw your device across the room. If you are searching for a Connections hint August 18, you're probably down to your last two mistakes and feeling the heat. It happens to the best of us.
The brilliance of this game isn't just vocabulary. It's about how your brain categorizes information under pressure. Some days are straightforward—you see four types of fruit and you move on. Other days, like today, the words are slippery. They overlap. You see "Lead" and think of metal, but then you see "Follow" and realize you're looking at verbs of direction. Or are you?
What Makes the August 18 Puzzle So Tricky?
The difficulty curve in Connections is color-coded for a reason. Yellow is usually the "straight talker," the group where the connection is literal. Green and Blue start playing with metaphors and specific knowledge niches. Purple? Purple is the wildcard. It's often "Words that start with X" or "Blank-Word" associations that require you to think about the word as a physical object rather than its meaning.
When you're looking for a Connections hint August 18, you have to watch out for the overlaps. Today's grid loves to tease you with words that could belong to a category about leadership, but actually belong to something much more mundane. Honestly, the NYT editors are trolls in the best way possible. They know you're going to see three words that fit a "Boss" theme and spend three guesses trying to find the fourth, only to realize "Boss" isn't a category at all.
Breaking Down the Yellow Group
For the August 18 puzzle, the easiest group—the Yellow one—revolves around the idea of sequence. Think about what happens when you are organized. You have things in a specific order. If you see words like Next, Following, or Subsequent, you're on the right track. It's not about being a leader; it's about what comes after.
Usually, people overthink the Yellow category. They assume there must be a pun. There isn't. It’s just a list of synonyms. If you’ve got words that basically mean "the one after this one," group them together and bank those points. It clears the board and makes the harder groups easier to visualize.
Deep Dive into the Green and Blue Categories
The middle-tier categories are where the game usually gets won or lost. For August 18, we're looking at things that can be measured or quantified.
Think about a kitchen. Or a laboratory. Or even just a standard office. What are things that come in specific increments? We’re talking about units. But here is the catch: they aren't all the same kind of units. One might be for weight, one for time, and one for volume. The connection isn't the physical property being measured, but the fact that they are all "Units of X."
- Pound (Weight)
- Second (Time)
- Foot (Length)
Wait. "Second" can also mean "the person who comes after the first." See how they do that? That's a classic NYT move. They take a word with multiple meanings and place it in a grid where both meanings could work. You have to look at the remaining words to see which definition has three partners. If you see "Minute" and "Hour," then "Second" is almost certainly time-related. If you see "First" and "Third," then "Second" is about rank.
The Blue Group: Getting Specific
The Blue group today focuses on specific types of something. Specifically, think about things that have Lead (the metal, not the verb). This is a bit of a "knowledge" category. You have to know what items traditionally contain lead, or used to contain lead before we realized it wasn't exactly great for our health.
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- Pencils (Even though it's actually graphite, we still call it lead).
- Batteries (Lead-acid batteries are the industry standard for cars).
- Weights (Fishing sinkers, for example).
- Crystal (Lead crystal glassware).
If you were trying to link "Lead" with "Follow" earlier, this is where the puzzle breaks your heart. "Lead" in this context is a noun. This shift from verb to noun is the most common way players lose their streaks.
The Infamous Purple Group: Words That...
The Purple group is the "Ah-ha!" moment of the day. It’s usually the most satisfying to solve but the hardest to guess. For the Connections hint August 18, the theme is Words that precede another word.
Specifically, think about the word "Case." If you look at the remaining words, do they make sense if you put "Case" after them?
- Brief (Briefcase)
- Stair (Staircase)
- Suit (Suitcase)
- Show (Showcase)
It's clever. It’s elegant. It’s also incredibly frustrating if you don’t see it immediately. The word "Brief" usually makes people think of "Short" or "Quick," which could easily be a red herring for a "Time" category. This is why you should never hit "Submit" on your first instinct. Always look for a fifth word that fits. If you find five words for one category, you know you’ve actually found two different categories overlapping.
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Practical Advice for Solving the Connections Grid
Don't just click. That's the biggest mistake. I've done it. You see "Apple," "Orange," "Banana," and you're so excited that you click them immediately, ignoring the fact that "Peach" and "Cherry" are also there.
Use the Shuffle Button
Seriously. Use it. Our brains get stuck in patterns based on where the words are physically located on the screen. By shuffling, you break those accidental associations. You might see "Lead" next to "Pencil" after a shuffle and suddenly it clicks.
Say the Words Out Loud
This sounds silly, but it works. When you say "Second" out loud, your brain might jump to "Wait a second" or "I'll take a second helping." When you read it silently, you might only see it as the number 2. Vocalizing the words helps trigger different neural pathways associated with how we actually use language in the real world.
Look for Prefixes and Suffixes
If you’re stuck, stop looking at what the words mean. Look at how they are built. Are there words that could all take "S" at the end to mean something else? Are there words that are all compound words? The Purple category is almost always about the structure of the word rather than its definition.
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Why We Are All Obsessed With This Game
Connections has taken over the morning routine for millions. It’s the new Wordle. But unlike Wordle, which is a logic puzzle of elimination, Connections is a lateral thinking test. It’s a measure of how flexible your mind is.
The August 18 puzzle is a perfect example of this. It forces you to jump from "Measurement Units" to "Household Items with Lead" to "Compound Words with Case." That’s a lot of mental gymnastics for 8:00 AM. But that's the draw. It’s a tiny, controlled hit of dopamine when those four purple tiles finally flash and disappear.
Step-by-Step Strategy for Today
If you are still staring at the grid and haven't made your moves yet, follow this order to protect your streak.
- First, identify the synonyms for "following" (Next, Subsequent, etc.). This is your safety net.
- Second, look for the units of measurement. If you see more than four, look at the other words to see which "unit" might actually be part of a different group (like "Second" or "Foot").
- Third, test the "Case" suffix theory. Do you have "Suit," "Stair," or "Brief"? If so, lock those in.
- Finally, the remaining four words will be your "Contains Lead" group. Even if you don't fully understand why they go together, the process of elimination is a valid strategy.
Check your grid one last time before committing. If you see "Lead" and "Pencil" together, you're golden. If you've managed to avoid the trap of linking "Lead" (the verb) with "Follow," you've already won half the battle. Go get that perfect score.