Its triple digits time!

The word-matching game has hit puzzle number 100.

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 retry.

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 further 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?

Everything is pretty straightforward today.

Familiarity witha certain Ernest Borgnine moviemay help you recognize one of the groups, but its not required.

Green category - Well dressed.

Blue category - This isConnections, after all.

Purple category - Downright filthy.

Does todays Connections game involve any wordplay?

Theres one fill-in-the-blank category.

Everything else is based on meaning.

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 further down.)

What are the ambiguous words in todays Connections?

A LINK can join two concepts, or two web pages.

Or it can be part of a chain, or a character in a Zelda video game.

Today its the first of these, the more abstract meaning.

LAUNDRY is not in the same group as any of the clothing-related words today.

MARTINIs come in manytypes: shaken, stirred, dirty, extra dry.

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.

But where are the four-item groups?

I started with one of the words that didnt seem to match anything: BOOKMARK.

Next, what could BOND be if not James Bond?

Why, it could be a RELATION or LINK or TIE.

I got a hit with that grouping, too.

With TAB and TIE gone, how many clothing-related words are left?

Just four: CUFF, COLLAR, POCKET, BUTTON.

Which leaves MARTINI, LAUNDRY, and JOKE, all things that can bedry.

I submitted that grouping, unsure why DOZEN would fit with them.

Turns out its things that aredirty, not things that are dry.

Hey, I was close.