NYT Connections Hints & Answers (#1114) – Today's Puzzle, June 29
Today’s NYT Connections Tip
One category hides inside the endings of four unrelated-looking words.
Connections Hint for Each Word Today
Tap any word to see its Connections hint — what it means in today’s puzzle, no spoilers.
WOOFER
WOOFER Connections Hint
The large driver in a speaker system responsible for reproducing low-frequency bass sounds — a genuine speaker component, not a dog joke.
RUFFIAN
RUFFIAN Connections Hint
A rough, violent person — old-fashioned slang for a street thug or brawler, the kind of word a Victorian would use.
INHALE
INHALE Connections Hint
To breathe in — but colloquially, to inhale food means to eat it so fast it barely touches the sides.
GROOT
GROOT Connections Hint
The tree-like Marvel character who only says 'I am Groot' — but look at the last four letters and you will find a tree part hiding there.
The large driver in a speaker system responsible for reproducing low-frequency bass sounds — a genuine speaker component, not a dog joke.
EMBARK
EMBARK Connections Hint
To board a ship or begin a journey — a perfectly normal English verb whose final three letters contain a tree part.
MAGNET
MAGNET Connections Hint
The permanent magnet inside a speaker that interacts with the voice coil to move the cone — a core component of how speakers work.
SNARF
SNARF Connections Hint
To eat or drink greedily and noisily — informal and vivid, exactly the kind of word that belongs with guzzle and inhale.
CONE
CONE Connections Hint
The cone-shaped paper or plastic diaphragm inside a speaker driver that vibrates to produce sound — not an ice cream cone here.
ROGUE
ROGUE Connections Hint
A dishonest or mischievous person — a classic old-timey label for a scoundrel or trickster, still used today but with a vintage flavour.
CRUSH
CRUSH Connections Hint
To defeat or destroy — but also slang for eating or drinking something with intense enthusiasm, as in 'she crushed that burger'.
CABINET
CABINET Connections Hint
The wooden or plastic enclosure that houses a speaker's drivers and components — not a kitchen cabinet or a government cabinet here.
STRUNK
STRUNK Connections Hint
As in Strunk and White, authors of The Elements of Style — but the final five letters of this word hide a tree part.
NUDIBRANCH
NUDIBRANCH Connections Hint
A type of brightly coloured sea slug — exotic-sounding and seemingly random here, but its ending conceals a tree part.
MISCREANT
MISCREANT Connections Hint
A person who behaves badly or breaks the law — a wonderfully old-fashioned word for a wrongdoer or villain.
GUZZLE
GUZZLE Connections Hint
To drink greedily and in large quantities — the most classic of the 'consume with abandon' words in this grid.
SCOUNDREL
SCOUNDREL Connections Hint
A dishonest or unscrupulous person — another gloriously old-timey insult, the kind Han Solo gets called.
Today’s NYT Connections Hints for All Four Categories
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Yellow Connections Hint Today
Old-fashioned words for a villain or bad person. Think: Victorian insults, period drama
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Green Connections Hint Today
Verbs meaning to eat or drink with zero restraint. Think: wolfing it down fast
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Blue Connections Hint Today
Physical components found inside or around a loudspeaker. Think: what makes sound come out
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Purple Connections Hint Today
Each word's final letters spell out a part of a tree. Think: endings, not meanings
Traps & Misdirects Hints for Today’s Connections Puzzle
Today’s Connections puzzle includes words intentionally placed to misdirect you into wrong groups. These traps and misdirects hints reveal which words are designed to mislead, so you don’t burn your 4 allowed mistakes on deliberate decoys.
WOOFER is the low-frequency driver in a speaker, CONE is the paper diaphragm that moves air, and CABINET is the enclosure the whole thing lives in — three speaker parts that practically beg to be grouped together. The danger is locking these three in before you confirm the fourth member, which is less obvious than these three.
CRUSH, INHALE, and SNARF all describe devouring something with zero restraint — the grouping feels obvious. The risk is assuming the fourth word is equally obvious and grabbing something that actually belongs elsewhere.
GROOT reads as a Marvel character, EMBARK as a verb meaning to board a ship, NUDIBRANCH as a type of sea creature, and STRUNK as the co-author of a famous writing guide — nothing connects them on the surface. The connection is not what these words mean but what tree-related word is hiding inside the last few letters of each one. Look at the endings, not the definitions.
Today’s NYT Connections Answers
Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained
OLD TIMEY TROUBLEMAKERS
MISCREANT, ROGUE, RUFFIAN, and SCOUNDREL are all old-fashioned words for a bad or dishonest person — the kind of vocabulary a Victorian novelist or a period-drama villain would reach for.
- MISCREANT
- A miscreant is a person who behaves badly or commits crimes — a formal, slightly archaic word for a wrongdoer.
- ROGUE
- A rogue is a dishonest or mischievous person — the word has a roguish charm to it, which is why it survived into modern use.
- RUFFIAN
- A ruffian is a rough, violent person — a street tough or brawler, the word conjuring cobblestones and gaslight.
- SCOUNDREL
- A scoundrel is an unscrupulous or dishonest person — a gloriously theatrical insult that peaked in the 19th century.
CONSUME WITH GUSTO
CRUSH, GUZZLE, INHALE, and SNARF all mean to eat or drink something greedily and with great enthusiasm — each word carries a sense of speed and total lack of restraint.
- CRUSH
- In informal use, to crush food or drink means to consume it with impressive speed and enthusiasm — 'he crushed three slices in two minutes'.
- GUZZLE
- To guzzle is to drink greedily and in large quantities — the word itself sounds like the act, all gulping and excess.
- INHALE
- To inhale food is to eat it so fast it seems to disappear without chewing — borrowed from the literal meaning of breathing in.
- SNARF
- To snarf is to eat or drink greedily and noisily — informal and vivid, it sits comfortably alongside guzzle and inhale.
PARTS OF A SPEAKER
CABINET, CONE, MAGNET, and WOOFER are all physical components of a loudspeaker system — together they describe the enclosure, the vibrating diaphragm, the motor element, and the low-frequency driver.
- CABINET
- The cabinet is the enclosure — usually a wooden box — that houses the speaker's drivers and shapes the sound.
- CONE
- The cone is the cone-shaped diaphragm, typically made of paper or plastic, that vibrates back and forth to push air and create sound.
- MAGNET
- The permanent magnet sits at the back of a speaker driver and creates the magnetic field that the voice coil reacts against to move the cone.
- WOOFER
- A woofer is the large driver in a speaker system specifically designed to reproduce low-frequency bass sounds.
ENDING IN PARTS OF A TREE
EMBARK, GROOT, NUDIBRANCH, and STRUNK each end in a word that names a part of a tree — BARK, ROOT, BRANCH, and TRUNK respectively — hidden inside longer words that have nothing to do with trees.
- EMBARK
- EMBARK ends in BARK — the outer covering of a tree's trunk and branches. The word means to begin a journey, but BARK is sitting right there at the end.
- GROOT
- GROOT ends in ROOT — the underground part of a tree that anchors it and absorbs water. The Marvel character's name hides ROOT in its final four letters.
- NUDIBRANCH
- NUDIBRANCH ends in BRANCH — a division of a tree's trunk or limb. A nudibranch is a sea slug, but BRANCH closes out the word.
- STRUNK
- STRUNK ends in TRUNK — the main woody stem of a tree. Strunk is best known as co-author of the writing guide The Elements of Style, but TRUNK is hiding at the end.
What Makes Today’s NYT Connections Puzzle Tricky?
WOOFER, ROGUE, NUDIBRANCH, and CABINET land in very different mental spaces — a speaker component, a villain, a sea slug, and a piece of furniture — yet all sixteen words have to fit into exactly four groups.
The editor's deepest trick is a category where the words themselves are not the connection — you have to look at what is hiding inside the endings of certain words, not at what the words mean.
Easier than average for two groups, genuinely hard for one — the hidden-ending category will stump most players until the penny drops, and once it does, the remaining words fall into place fast.
How to Use Connections Hints
Everyone playing NYT Connections puzzle gets stuck at a different point. Some players can’t figure out a single word. Others have three groups solved and can’t find the fourth. Where you are stuck determines which connection hint you need. So if you are stuck in today’s puzzle, find your situation in the sections below, use the recommended Connections hint, and continue solving. You don’t need to reveal more than what gets you past the point where you are stuck.
A word in the puzzle has an unfamiliar meaning
Some words in today’s NYT Connections puzzle are uncommon. Connections editor Wyna Liu often uses words with specific or less familiar meanings, particularly in the green, blue, and purple categories. If you don’t know what a word means, you cannot reliably place it in a group.
Use the Word Hint. It tells you what the word means in the context of today’s puzzle. Tap any word directly on the board above to see its hint. Each word opens a small card with its puzzle-specific connections hint.
No groups are forming after reading all sixteen words
The connection between words is often not obvious from their meanings alone — categories are built around themes that require a specific angle to see. These category-level clues are the most useful hints for connections that aren’t coming together from word meanings alone.
Use the Category Hint. It points you toward the theme of a category without revealing the category name or which words belong to it. In the All Hints section, tap “Yellow Category Hint” first. Read it before revealing anything else. Yellow is the easiest category by design.
You have a possible group but aren’t ready to guess
You think four words belong together but you’re not confident enough to guess. If you’re unsure, don’t guess yet — a wrong guess costs you one of your four mistakes.
Use the Category Name. It reveals the exact name of the category without showing you which words belong to it. If your group belongs to that category, guess with confidence. If it doesn’t, you’ve saved a mistake. In the All Hints section, tap “Yellow Category Name” — or whichever colour you are testing. The name appears immediately below the hint.
One word seems to fit more than one group
You have built a group of four words but one word in it could also fit somewhere else. NYT Connections editor Wyna Liu deliberately places misleading words on the board that seem to fit multiple categories. These are the most common source of wrong guesses in today’s connections puzzle.
Use the Traps and Misdirects Hints. It identifies the specific misleading words in today’s puzzle and explains why they don’t belong where you think they do. Go to the Traps and Misdirects section and look for the word that is bothering you.
You know the category but can’t find all four words
You have identified the theme of a category but can’t find all four words that belong to it.
Use the Word Reveal. It uncovers one masked word at a time without revealing the full group. This is the most precise connection hint available — it gives you exactly one word without touching the rest of the puzzle. In the All Hints section, find the colour category you have identified. Tap “Category Words” to open the reveal panel, then tap “Reveal word 1” — one word at a time until your group is complete.
One mistake left with two groups unsolved
You have one mistake remaining and two groups unsolved. If you guess wrong here, the game ends and NYT reveals all the answers automatically.
Do not guess yet. Use the Category Name for both remaining groups first. If the category names still don’t resolve it, use the Word Reveal to uncover one or two words causing the split. In the All Hints section, tap the Category Name for both remaining colours. If that is still not enough, tap “Category Words” and reveal one word at a time until the correct split is clear.
You want today’s answers without solving the puzzle
Use the Answers section. It shows all four category names and the four words that belong to each one. Go to the Answers section.
The puzzle is over but a category still doesn’t make sense
You can see the four groups and their words but the connection between them isn’t clear.
Use the Answer Explanation. It tells you exactly what connects the words in each category and why each individual word belongs there. This is particularly useful for the purple category, where the connection is almost never straightforward. Go to the Answer Explanation section.
