Waking up to a fresh grid of sixteen words can feel like a personal attack. You stare at the screen. The coffee hasn't kicked in yet. You see "Draft" and immediately think of beer, but then you see "Check" and "Bill" and suddenly you’re thinking about a stressful dinner at a restaurant. That’s the magic—and the absolute misery—of the New York Times Connections puzzle. If you are looking for Connections hints August 22, you are likely down to your last two mistakes and feeling the heat.
It’s a game of misdirection. Wyna Liu, the puzzle editor, is notoriously good at planting red herrings that make you want to throw your phone across the room. She knows exactly how your brain works. She knows you’ll see two words that seem like a perfect match and ignore the three other possibilities sitting right in front of you.
The struggle is real.
Why the Connections Hints August 22 Puzzle is Tripping People Up
The August 22 grid is a classic example of "overlap" hell. In this specific puzzle, the word "Draft" is a total nightmare. Why? Because it fits into about four different categories if you stretch your imagination. It could be a type of beer. It could be a preliminary version of a paper. It could be a sports recruitment process. It could even be a breeze in a cold room.
When you look at the Connections hints August 22 data, the "Yellow" category—usually the easiest—is actually quite straightforward today, focusing on things you might find in a desk drawer or a workplace. But the game doesn't want you to find the easy path. It wants you to stumble into the "Purple" category traps before you've even cleared the "Green."
Honesty is the best policy here: most players fail because they lock in a group of three words and then try to "force" a fourth word that doesn't actually belong.
Breaking Down the Word Groups
Let’s look at the actual words. You’ve got words like Check, Draft, Bill, and Invoice. At first glance, these are all financial documents. You’re thinking, "Easy. This is the Yellow group." But wait. Check is also a verb. Bill is a name. Draft is... well, we already talked about the Draft problem.
The first group—the one that usually pops out first—is actually related to Restaurant Transactions. Think about what the server drops on the table at the end of the night. You've got the Check, the Bill, the Tab, and the Invoice. Wait, does Invoice fit there? Not really. You don't usually get an "invoice" at a diner. This is where the nuance of the August 22 puzzle starts to show its teeth.
Then there’s the Body Parts trap. You see Chest, Foot, and maybe Back. Your brain screams "Anatomy!" But look closer. Is there a fourth? If there isn't a solid fourth, abandon ship immediately. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
The "Yellow" category today is actually centered around Things that are "Drawn". This is a clever one. You can draw a Bath, you can draw a Blank, you can draw a Conclusion, and you can draw a Line. This is a quintessential Connections move—taking a common verb and finding its most popular nouns.
The Hidden Complexity of the Purple Category
The Purple category is usually the "wordplay" category. On August 22, it’s particularly sneaky. Often, these involve a word that can be added to another word to make a phrase.
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Think about the word "Duck".
What goes with Duck?
Lame duck.
Sitting duck.
Rubber duck.
If you see words that seem completely unrelated—like a type of metal and a type of bird—start looking for a common prefix or suffix. It’s the only way out alive.
Strategies for Solving Without Losing Your Mind
If you’re still staring at the Connections hints August 22 grid and feeling hopeless, stop clicking. Seriously. The biggest mistake is "rage-clicking." You get one wrong, you get frustrated, and you click another four words just to see if they work. They won't.
The "Shuffle" is Your Best Friend
The NYT developers put the words in a specific order to trick you. They put "Draft" next to "Check" on purpose. Hit the shuffle button. Hit it ten times. Seeing the words in a different spatial arrangement breaks the neural pathways that are keeping you stuck in a trap.
Say the Words Out Loud
It sounds silly. Do it anyway. Sometimes hearing the word helps you realize it’s a homophone. A word like "Row" looks like it rhymes with "low," but it could also be "row" as in a "fight" (rhymes with "cow"). If you only read it silently, you might miss the secondary meaning.
The "Missing Link" Method
If you have three words that you are 90% sure belong together, don't guess the fourth. Instead, look at every single other word left on the board and ask, "Does this fit the theme?" If two or more words fit, the theme is a trap. A real Connections category will have exactly four words that fit perfectly, with no ambiguity once you see the connection.
Common Mistakes with the August 22 Grid
A lot of people are trying to group Draft, Wind, and Breeze. It feels natural. It feels right. But in this specific puzzle, "Wind" isn't there. You’re hallucinating a category because your brain wants to find a pattern.
Another pitfall? The Sports trap.
Whenever you see Draft, Pick, or Roster, you think "Football."
But look at the rest of the board. Is there a Goalie? No. Is there a Puck? No.
If the category is "Sports," there will usually be a very specific theme, like "Tennis Terms" or "Olympic Events." Generic sports words are often red herrings designed to make you waste your turns.
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How to Get Better at Connections Long-Term
Connections isn't just about vocabulary. It’s about lateral thinking. You have to be able to look at a word and see it as a noun, a verb, and an adjective all at once.
- Read more diverse material. If you only read sports news, you’ll miss the Broadway references. If you only read literature, you’ll miss the tech slang.
- Play the archive. Practice makes perfect. Go back and play puzzles from six months ago. You’ll start to see Wyna Liu’s patterns. She loves "Words that start with a Greek letter" or "Synonyms for 'Nonsense'."
- Don't be afraid to walk away. Your brain continues to process the puzzle in the background (incubation). You’ll come back twenty minutes later and the answer will jump out at you.
Actionable Steps for Today's Puzzle
If you are currently stuck on the Connections hints August 22 grid, follow this exact workflow:
- Identify the "Restaurant" words. Look for Bill, Check, Tab, and Tip. If "Tip" isn't there, look for Gratuity. If neither is there, look for Draft.
- Isolate the "Drawn" category. Test the words Bath, Blank, Line, and Conclusion. If they are all present, lock them in. This is usually your Green or Yellow win.
- Look for the "Double Meaning" words. Words like Boxer (could be a dog, a fighter, or underwear) are almost always part of a "Types of X" category or a "Words that follow Y" category.
- The "Leftovers" Strategy. If you get down to eight words and you’re stuck, try to find the most obscure category first. Often, the last four words are so weird that you would never have guessed them anyway.
Pro Tip: If you see a word that can be a color (like "Orange" or "Rose"), check immediately if there are three other colors. If there are five colors, one is a trap. If there are only three, the "color" isn't the category—the category is something else entirely, like "Brands of Soda" (Orange) or "Types of Flowers" (Rose).
Solving the Connections puzzle is a marathon, not a sprint. Some days you get it in four straight clicks, and some days you fail miserably. The August 22 puzzle is one of those mid-tier difficulty grids that rewards patience over speed. Stop, breathe, shuffle, and look for the words that have more than one life. Once you stop seeing them as static text and start seeing them as shapeshifters, the game becomes a whole lot easier.
Good luck. You’re going to need it for the Purple group.
Next Steps for Mastery:
- Open your Notes app and jot down the categories you missed today. You'll notice themes repeat every few months.
- Try to explain the "Purple" category to someone else once you solve it. If you can't explain it, you didn't really solve it—you just got lucky with the leftovers.
- Use a digital dictionary to look up secondary definitions for the words you didn't recognize as belonging together; this expands your "lateral" vocabulary for tomorrow's grid.