NYT Connections hint and answers (Tuesday, December 12)

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's solution? Check out the Connections hint and answer for Thursday 21st December!

Want a hint for Connections today? Piggybacking off the monumental success of daily puzzle game Wordle, the New York Times has another fantastically popular word game out now. It's called Connections, and if you haven't played it before, now's the time to start.

In this guide, we'll give you a handy hint selection for today's Connections puzzle on Tuesday, December 12th, before revealing the group themes and the Connections answers themselves. We'll also explain how to play Connections if this is your first time coming over from Wordle!

Connections words on Tuesday, December 12

For reference, here are the 16 Connections words for today:

Connections hint for December 12

Here's a hint for each of the word groups in today's Connections puzzle, plus a couple more clues to help you find the answer:

• Yellow (Easiest): All of these words are related to shrouded and obscured weather.
• Green (Easy): You can use these words to describe the act of a hunter seeking their prey.
• Blue (Medium): Think of analogue bits in old arcade cabinets.
• Purple (Hardest): Combine these with another word and you'll make nations.
• Extra hint 1: For words in the Blue group, think pre-electronic arcades.
• Extra hint 2: "Fin" and "Ire" belong in the same group.

Connections groups for December 12

If you need an even bigger clue to figure out today's Connections puzzle, below we'll reveal the four correct Connections groups - the themes which link together each set of four words in the Connections grid.

Here are the Connections groups for today:

• Murky condition
• Follow
• Pinball machine components
• Country names + the word "land"

Now that you know the themes for the various different Connections in today's puzzle, see if you can solve it! If not, check just below for the full answer.

Spoiler warning! Today's Connections answer lies ahead!

What is the answer to Connections today (Tuesday December 12)?

• Murky condition: Cloud, Fog, Haze, Mist
• Follow: Shadow, Tail, Track, Trail
• Pinball machine components: Ball, Bumper, Flipper, Plunger
• Country names + the word "land": Ice, Ire, Fin, Nether

Congratulations if you got today's Connections answer right, with or without the help of our handy hints above! And if you didn't succeed today, don't worry - a new Connections puzzle is released every day at midnight, so you can try again tomorrow, just like with Wordle!

What is Connections?

Connections is a word puzzle game published every day by the NYT, the hosts of the endlessly popular Wordle puzzle. Crafted each day by crossword puzzle-maker Wyna Liu, Connections presents you with a selection of 16 seemingly disparate words, and you have to group them together in four sets of four, where each group of four words has a common theme.

For instance, the words "Hook", "Nana", "Peter", and "Wendy" are all Peter Pan characters. Or to take another example, "Action", "Ballpark", "Go", and "Stick" are all words which commonly come just before the word "Figure".

Your job is to figure out what these themes are that connect the various words together - but be wary, because a lot of the time there are red herring connections placed in there deliberately to throw you off! To win the game, you have to find all four Connections without making 4 mistakes. On your fourth mistake, the game is over and the answer is revealed automatically.

Each of the four groups in each day's Connections puzzle is also assigned a different colour, which represents how easy or difficult the Connection is to find. These colours are: Yellow (Easiest), Green (Easy), Blue (Medium), and Purple (Hardest).

That wraps up today's guide on how to solve the NYT Connections word puzzle. If you're looking for help with Wordle, we've also got you covered with our list of past Wordle answers, as well as the Wordle hint and answer for Thursday 21st December. You can also check out our list of the best starting words for Wordle, or use our Wordle Solver tool to help you find the answer with ease!