Waking up on a Saturday usually involves a slow coffee and a quick scroll, but today’s NYT puzzle grid is anything but relaxing. If you’re staring at sixteen words and feeling like they’re staring back with a smirk, you aren’t alone. Honestly, today’s board is one of those that looks easy for about ten seconds until you realize how many words could fit into three different categories.
It’s the classic "red herring" trap. You see SKIN and PELT and think, "Okay, animal layers, easy." Then you see HIDE. Wait, that fits too. But then there’s COAT and COVER. Now you have five or six words for a group that only allows four. That’s how the New York Times gets you.
The Wordle Connections Answers Today Explained (January 17, 2026)
Let's just get to the point because nobody likes losing a streak. For the regular Connections puzzle #951, the categories are a mix of physical actions and some pretty clever wordplay that might make you groan once you see it.
Yellow Category: Spread Over
This is the most straightforward group, though it overlaps heavily with the Green and Blue words if you aren't careful. These are all verbs that mean to apply a layer.
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- BLANKET
- COAT
- COVER
- PLASTER
Green Category: Throw
These are synonyms for tossing something. If you’ve ever played a sport or just been frustrated enough to chuck your phone, these words should feel familiar.
- CAST
- HURL
- PELT
- SLING
Blue Category: Anagrams
This is where the puzzle gets "meta." The words themselves don't share a meaning; they share the exact same letters. This is the one that usually trips people up because we are trained to look for definitions, not letter counts. Every word here uses the letters I, K, N, S.
- INKS
- KINS
- SINK
- SKIN
Purple Category: First Words of Kids' Games
The most difficult category today requires you to fill in the blank. Each of these is the starting word for a classic playground game.
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- CAPTURE (Capture the Flag)
- HIDE (Hide and Seek)
- RED (Red Rover)
- SIMON (Simon Says)
Why Today’s Puzzle Is Tricky
The overlap between SKIN, PELT, and HIDE is the primary "rainbow herring" of the day. All three can refer to animal hides, but they are split across three different categories. SKIN is part of the anagram group, PELT is a verb for throwing (as in "pelting someone with snowballs"), and HIDE is part of the children’s game category.
If you tried to group them by "animal parts," you likely ran out of lives quickly.
Another subtle trap is PLASTER. While it fits perfectly in the "Spread Over" category, some players often mistake it for a construction-only term, missing its verb form. Similarly, CAST could have easily been associated with "Plaster" if you were thinking about a broken arm. The New York Times editors, led by Wyna Liu, are notorious for these thematic crossovers.
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Pro Tips for Solving Connections Without Losing Your Mind
Don't just click the first four words you see. You've got to play the long game.
- The "One Away" Warning is a Compass: If the game tells you that you are "one away," don't just swap one random word. Look at the remaining twelve words. Is there another word that fits the theme better, or is the entire theme a lie?
- Say the Words Out Loud: Sometimes the connection isn't visual; it's phonetic. While that didn't apply to today's anagrams, it often helps with "homophone" or "sounds like" categories.
- Shuffle is Your Best Friend: Our brains get stuck in patterns based on where the words are physically located on the grid. Hit that shuffle button. It forces your eyes to re-evaluate the words individually rather than as a cluster.
Looking for the Sports Edition?
If you're playing the Connections: Sports Edition today (#481), the board is quite different. The categories there focus on team locations and specific athlete names.
- Yellow (In No. 1 Position): FIRST, FRONT, LEAD, POLE.
- Green (AFC East Teams): BUFFALO, MIAMI, NEW ENGLAND, NEW YORK.
- Blue (Jeffs): BAGWELL, KENT, SATURDAY, VAN GUNDY.
- Purple (Rockets): CLEMENS, HOUSTON, RICHARD, TOLEDO.
The "Jeffs" category is particularly brutal if you aren't a sports historian. Jeff Bagwell (Astros legend), Jeff Kent (MLB second baseman), Jeff Saturday (NFL center), and Jeff Van Gundy (NBA coach/analyst) cover a lot of ground.
Actionable Strategy for Tomorrow
To improve your success rate for future puzzles, try the "bottom-up" approach. Instead of looking for the easiest (Yellow) category first, spend three minutes trying to find the Purple or Blue connection. These are usually the ones that rely on wordplay, prefixes, or suffixes. By identifying the most "unique" words—like SIMON or INKS today—you can often isolate the hardest group first, making the rest of the board a breeze.
If you're still stuck on the Wordle today, the answer is FIERY. Use that knowledge to keep your streaks alive and dominate the group chat.