NYT Connections hint and answers today: September 28 (#109)

New York Times Connection puzzle
(Image credit: Future)

Whether you want to organise today's NYT Connections board in a snap just for the fun of it, or because you're one bad guess away from losing, you'll find every answer for the September 28 (#109) game right here. We've got a full selection of hints too if you need them, as well as general advice on how to play.

Maybe it was the way they landed after a few clicks of the shuffle button, maybe it was the excellent cup of coffee I'd drained a little too quickly, but whatever it was, today's Connections went down without much of a fight today. I'd like to pretend it'll be the same tomorrow, but I don't think I'm that lucky.

NYT Connections hint today: Thursday, September 28

Give your Connections game a quick lift with these hints.

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Yellow: A diamond ring, a polished mirror, a fish in clear water. These are all words used to describe the way something might catch the light.

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Green: If you were hungry and out alone in the wilderness, you might need to do one or all of these to feed yourself.

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Blue: All four of these words represent a different subgenre of music—specifically rap.

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Purple: There's one word missing from the front of these four, something bright and airy.

NYT Connections puzzle

(Image credit: NYT)

Don't scroll any further until you're ready for the full answers!

NYT Connections answer today: Thursday, September 28 (#109)

Need them? Want them? Either way, you've now got all the answers.

  • 🟨 Yellow: Flash, Gleam, Glitter, Sparkle (Reflect light)
  • 🟩 Green: Fish, Forage, Hunt, Trap (Ways to gather food)
  • 🟦 Blue: Bounce, Crunk, Drill, Grime (Rap subgenres)
  • 🟪 Purple: Beer, Bulb, Rail, Year (Light_____)

More about the New York Times' Connections puzzle game

Connections is the NYT's latest popular puzzle game where you have to find the common thread that ties four seemingly unrelated words together. Can you find all four increasingly challenging groups of words before you make four mistakes? Don't forget: every day only has one solution even if some words look like they could belong to more than one group, and you can (and should) shuffle the grid as many times as you need to. It can help jog your brain into reading the words in a different way.

If you enjoy Connections, you should check out the board game Codenames. It's a popular party game that tasks players with using clues to guess certain words from a grid. As in Connections, the heart of the game lies in how many different possible interpretations the words could have. Connections also clearly owes a debt to Wordle, the hit puzzle game that the New York Times bought in 2022. Perhaps most obvious is the way it uses colored emojis to let you share the results of your puzzle with other players on social media: 

Connections
Puzzle #80

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Each color corresponds to one grouping of four words; a row with mixed colors shows you incorrectly guessed one or more words in a group that didn't totally match. The rows also show what order you solved the Connections puzzle in. The rows aren't all created equal: the New York Times ranks them from "straightforward" to "tricky" starting with yellow and progressing to purple.

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Want to show up your Connections friends or just challenge yourself? Try to start by identifying the purple words first and nailing them with your very first guess!

Kerry Brunskill
Contributing Writer

When baby Kerry was brought home from the hospital her hand was placed on the space bar of the family Atari 400, a small act of parental nerdery that has snowballed into a lifelong passion for gaming and the sort of freelance job her school careers advisor told her she couldn't do. She's now PC Gamer's word game expert, taking on the daily Wordle puzzle to give readers a hint each and every day. Her Wordle streak is truly mighty.

Somehow Kerry managed to get away with writing regular features on old Japanese PC games, telling today's PC gamers about some of the most fascinating and influential games of the '80s and '90s.