Youll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase.

Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common.

Select four items and hit the Submit button.

If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed.

(Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.)

If your guess was incorrect, youll get a chance to hit it one more time.

You win when youve correctly identified all four groups.

But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.

Expect to see overlapping groups.

So dont hit submit until youve confirmed that your group of four containsonlythose four things.

If youre stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to havenoconnection to the others.

Another way to win when youre stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints.

Below, Ill give you some oblique hints at todays Connections answers.

And farther down the page, Ill reveal the themes and the answers.

Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

Does todays Connections game require any special knowledge?

Nope, nothing thats not common knowledge.

The only slightly unusual word is CHAI, a tea thats often brewed with sweet spices.

Green category - These would all be at home in a barnyard.

Blue category - Dont go barking up the wrong tree.

Purple category - Yeah, wouldnt you like to know.

Does todays Connections game involve any wordplay?

Nope, just the usual ambiguity of words that could belong to multiple categories.

Ready to hear the answers?

Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.

BEWARE: Spoilers follow for todays Connections puzzle!

Were about to give away some of the answers.

Scroll slowly if you dont want the whole thing spoiled.

(The full solution is a bit farther down.)

What are the ambiguous words in todays Connections?

TEA can be gossip or, you know, tea.

BARK is the noise a dog makes, but its also part of a tree.

What are the categories in todays Connections?

I give them all away below.

What are the yellow words in todays Connections?

The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward.

What are the green words in todays Connections?

The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest.

What are the blue words in todays Connections?

The blue grouping is the second-hardest.

What are the purple words in todays Connections?

The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest.

How I solved todays Connections

The DIRT, the TEA, the BUZZ, the DISH.

Words for gossip, right?

I swapped out BUZZ for SCOOP, but no dice there either.

Work on something else.

I had four words relating to trees: BARK, TRUNK, BRANCH, ROOT.

Then only four things that could be animal noises: MEOW, OINK, CLUCK, BUZZ.

At this point I had two categories solved, and two mistakes already.

Yep, thats it.