NYT Connections #1004 — Today's Hints and Answers (Wednesday, March 11)
Today's Connections puzzle is No. 1004 — and it's a clever one. Rated 1.8 out of 5 for difficulty, it blends stealing slang, dress-up phrases, cone-shaped objects, and tricky pronoun homophones. If you want to solve it yourself, stop after the hints. Full answers are at the bottom.
Today's 16 Words
DRESS, HEE, ICE CREAM, JAZZ, LIFT, MI, OUI, PALM, PINCH, PINE, POCKET, SNOW, SPIFF, SPRUCE, TRAFFIC, YEW
Hints Only — No Spoilers Yet
Yellow (Easiest): Think about what thieves do. These words are all slang for stealing.
Green: Think "Fancy ___." These words all follow a common word meaning to dress something up or make it fancy.
Blue: Think of a certain shape — something you'd find on a road, in a forest, or on a dessert menu.
Purple (Hardest): These words sound like English pronouns — but they're not spelled that way. Think phonetically, and consider other languages.
FULL ANSWERS BELOW — last chance to look away.
Today's Connections Answers
Yellow — STEAL: LIFT, PALM, PINCH, POCKET
Green — COOK WITH DRY HEAT: No — that's a different puzzle. Today's Green is FANCY ___: DRESS, JAZZ, SPIFF, SPRUCE
Blue — ___ CONE: ICE CREAM, PINE, SNOW, TRAFFIC
Purple — PRONOUN HOMOPHONES: HEE, MI, OUI, YEW — sounding like "he," "me," "we," and "you" respectively. OUI is French for "yes," YEW is the tree, MI is the musical note, and HEE approximates "he."
The Trap to Avoid
The most common mistake today was grouping PALM, SPRUCE, PINE, and YEW together as evergreen trees — a perfectly logical instinct that sends you straight into a wrong answer. PALM belongs with the thieves. SPRUCE and YEW belong in entirely different categories. That's the puzzle doing exactly what it's designed to do.
Sports Edition #534 — Bonus Answers
If you're also playing the Sports Edition today: NFC WEST TEAMS: ARIZONA, LOS ANGELES, SAN FRANCISCO, SEATTLE — "WHIP" IN BASEBALL: HITS, INNING, PITCHED, WALKS — HOCKEY HALL OF FAMERS: BOSSY, IGINLA, ORR, ST. LOUIS — Purple (You wear it around your waist): BELT.
