Today’s Connections Hints & Answers For January 21, 2025 (Puzzle #590)

If you are struggling to finish today’s Connections puzzle, there could be a few different reasons for that. Sometimes, it’s just unlucky that you don’t recognize some of the words in the harder categories and sometimes there are a lot of tricks that the editors use to make sure you have a harder time. If today is one of those unfortunate days, we have all the information you need to be more careful about what words you are putting together so that you can achieve victory.

If you want to try out a different kind of puzzle, The Password Game is a puzzle that incorporates a series of mini-puzzles that you have to solve in order to get to the final answer. They are called “rules” but they force you to solve them and ensure that your answer doesn’t contradict the other rules that they set for you. Sometimes this can feel frustrating, but usually, it can all be worked out and finished with a little bit of thinking. It is difficult, but it is also very satisfying to get to the end.

Today’s Connections Category Hints

JANUARY 21 #590

This puzzle can feel more difficult than it actually is, mainly due to one red herring and the sense that some of the words don’t belong together at all. However, if you find yourself struggling, there are ways to use what you do know to deduce what the answers are. To help you do so, I have a little more information that you will find helpful. This includes the following 4 clues:

• One category is about things that are done that are harsh
• One category is about four things that are all something a child might like
• One category is about four things that are used in a very specific situation outside
• One category is about four things that share a common title

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If that is not quite enough for you to finish it off, we still have all the tips you need to do so. The next big piece of information are the category names.

	PUTDOWN
	SMALL LIKENESS
	USED TO CLEAR SNOW
	DOCTORS IN POP CULTURE

Today’s Connections Answers

JANUARY 21 #590

Yellow Answers: Revealed & Explained

This category felt fairly straightforward. BARB does have multiple meanings, but with the other words in this category, it wasn’t hard to get this one. DIG could also be a bit of a red herring, due to SHOVEL and SAND also being in the puzzle today. However, with SLIGHT and CRACK being present, and nothing else that has that kind of meaning, it feels straightforward. It is the easy category, so that does line up with how the puzzle is supposed to work.

Green Answers: Revealed & Explained

I believe I got this category first, as DOLL is a specific word that makes it easy to latch onto it quite quickly. I saw MODEL not long after, leading me to look for other similar objects. FIGURE was easy to add in, but MINIATURE took me a moment to figure out. It wasn’t long, just long enough to make me think a bit. At first, I thought OCTOPUS might go here as another toy, but there is nothing to indicate that it is a toy, so any of the other words work better.

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Blue Answers: Revealed & Explained

This one is a category that could be very confusing for anyone who doesn’t live in a place that is under snow half the year. Having lived a fair amount of life in the Midwest, this category was more obvious to me. However, these words otherwise look very unrelated if you don’t know that. SALT and PEPPER also look like they should go together, but there isn’t a fourth word that could fill out a category with those words. This one is more difficult if you don’t know much about removing snow, which is how Connections often works.

Purple Answers: Revealed & Explained

This one might be hard depending on your knowledge of these various people. I think WHO and PEPPER are probably the most recognizable. However, with PEPPER and potentially OCTOPUS both being red herrings in other categories, this one is unlikely to be solved early. It all depends on your familiarity with the figures and if you associate them with “Doctor” in your everyday life or enough to recognize them as such. It also often depends on if you can recognize all 4, as opposed to just 1.

Other Games Like Connections

If you are still in a gaming mood, there are tons of other options out there. However, here are four that we picked that are fairly close to Connections.

Released

June 12, 2023

Developer(s)

The New York Times Company

Publisher(s)

The New York Times Company

ESRB

e

Platform(s)

Web Browser
, Mobile