If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day,bookmark this page.

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

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

NYT Connections board for September 24, 2024: BALLOON, BOOK, MODEL, BANNER, NOVEL, AMBASSADOR, CONFETTI, STREAMER, SECURE, CREATIVE, RESERVE, FRESH, ORIGINAL, GARLAND, INFLUENCER, CHARTER.

Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

Green category - When you want to plan ahead, perhaps for a dinner or vacation.

Blue category - Make the space look nice with these things.

Purple category - Professions for Instagram, TikTok, or Twitch.

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.)

BANNER could refer to the phrase a BANNER year for… but today, its a noun.

NOVEL does not refer to a fiction BOOK.

Today, NOVEL is an adjective, and BOOK is a verb.

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.

That feels a tad thin for a first guess though, so I want to keep looking.

BALLOON, CONFETTI, GARLAND, and STREAMER could go together.

NOVEL, CREATIVE, FRESH, and ORIGINAL feels like the strongest hit so far.

Lets try BALLOON, CONFETTI, GARLAND, and STREAMER then.

Oh wait, I just saw BANNER.

Ah, I see whats happening now: BALLOON, BANNER, GARLAND, and CONFETTI go together.

And AMBASSADOR, MODEL, INFLUENCER, and STREAMER go together.

I forgot that a brand AMBASSADOR was also a modern-day Instagram-y profession.

My initial hunch was right after all!

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 loop back and try.

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.

Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!