NYT Connections Hints #833: Hints, Answers and Tips for 21Sep 2025
Welcome back, puzzle enthusiasts! Ready to tackle another challenging NYT Connections puzzle? Today’s #833 edition for September 21, 2025, brings a delightful mix of tech-savvy wordplay and clever linguistic twists that are sure to keep you on your toes.
Whether you’re a seasoned solver looking for gentle nudges or someone who needs a complete roadmap to victory, this comprehensive guide has everything you need. We’ll walk you through strategic hints, category-specific clues, and ultimately reveal the complete solution—all while helping you sharpen your puzzle-solving skills for future challenges.
Understanding the Connections Puzzle
The New York Times Connections puzzle presents players with 16 words arranged in a 4×4 grid. Your mission? Group these words into four categories of four words each, based on shared connections or themes. The categories range from straightforward (yellow) to mind-bendingly complex (purple).
Each category has a difficulty level indicated by color:
- Yellow: Easiest, often straightforward associations
- Green: Moderate difficulty with clear thematic connections
- Blue: More challenging, requiring deeper knowledge or lateral thinking
- Purple: The trickiest category, often involving wordplay or obscure connections
Players get four mistakes before the game ends, making strategic thinking essential. The key to success lies in identifying the most obvious groupings first while being cautious about words that could belong to multiple categories.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Many players fall into predictable traps when solving Connections. One major mistake is rushing to group words that seem obviously related without considering alternative meanings. Another common error involves getting fixated on one potential category while missing clearer connections elsewhere.
The puzzle makers deliberately include red herrings—words that appear to belong together but actually don’t. Always double-check your groupings and consider whether any word could fit multiple categories before making your final selection.
General Hints for Puzzle #833
Before diving into specific categories, here are some broad hints to get your mental gears turning:
Think about different contexts where the same word might appear. Some of today’s words relate to modern technology, while others connect to everyday activities and dining experiences. Pay particular attention to words that might have their spelling altered in some way—the purple category is especially tricky today.
Consider both literal and figurative meanings of words. What you do with your hands on a screen differs from what you might do at a restaurant, yet both actions share common vocabulary.
Category-Specific Hints
Yellow Category Hint: Modern Interactions
These words all describe actions you perform daily on your smartphone or tablet. Think about the various ways you navigate through apps and websites using touch gestures.
Green Category Hint: Unwinding Time
When you need to decompress after a long day, you might engage in these activities. Each word represents a different way to take it easy and relax.
Blue Category Hint: Dining Decisions
Before you order your meal, you need to decide where you’ll enjoy it. These options represent different places within a restaurant where customers can sit and dine.
Purple Category Hint: Garden Variety Wordplay
This category requires you to think about vegetables, but with a twist. Each word becomes a common vegetable when you add something to the beginning. It’s all about what’s missing from the start.
⚠️ SPOILER ALERT: Complete Answers Below ⚠️
If you prefer to solve the puzzle independently, stop reading here. The complete solutions follow.
Today’s Connections #833 Answers
Yellow Category: Touchscreen Gestures
- PINCH: Zoom in or out by bringing two fingers together or apart
- SCROLL: Move through content by swiping vertically
- SWIPE: Navigate horizontally between screens or cards
- TAP: Select items with a quick finger touch
Green Category: Relax
- CHILL: Take it easy, relax casually
- LOAF: Spend time doing nothing productive
- LOUNGE: Recline comfortably in a relaxed position
- VEG: Short for “vegetate,” meaning to relax completely
Blue Category: Restaurant Seating Options
- BAR: Elevated seating area, often with stools
- BOOTH: Semi-private seating with high-backed benches
- COUNTER: Seating along a service counter
- TABLE: Traditional dining table with chairs
Purple Category: Vegetables with First Letter Removed
- ALE: Remove ‘K’ from KALE
- EEK: Remove ‘L’ from LEEK
- HIVE: Remove ‘C’ from CHIVE
- QUASH: Remove ‘S’ from SQUASH
Detailed Category Explanations
Why These Groupings Work
The touchscreen gestures category reflects our modern digital lifestyle. These four actions—pinch, scroll, swipe, and tap—represent the fundamental ways we interact with smartphones, tablets, and other touch-enabled devices. Each gesture has become second nature to users worldwide, making this a relatable yellow-level category.
The relax grouping showcases different ways to unwind, with varying levels of activity involved. “Chill” and “lounge” suggest comfortable positioning, while “loaf” and “veg” imply complete inactivity. All four words share the common theme of taking a break from productive activities.
Restaurant seating options covers the primary ways establishments accommodate diners. From casual bar seating to intimate booth experiences, these options represent different dining atmospheres and service styles that most people encounter regularly.
The vegetables with first letter removed category demonstrates the puzzle’s love for wordplay. This type of linguistic manipulation is typical for purple categories, requiring solvers to think beyond obvious connections and consider how words might be transformed or abbreviated.
Alternative Solutions and Potential Ambiguities
Today’s puzzle doesn’t present significant alternative groupings, which makes it more straightforward than some Connections challenges. However, some solvers might initially consider grouping words by their sound patterns or syllable counts, which won’t yield correct answers.
The purple category could potentially confuse players who don’t immediately recognize the pattern of missing first letters. Some might try grouping these words phonetically or by length, leading to incorrect attempts.
Tips for Future Puzzle Success
Develop a Strategic Approach
Start by scanning all 16 words for obvious themes. Look for proper nouns, technical terms, or words from specific domains like sports, food, or technology. These often form the clearer categories that serve as good starting points.
Consider multiple meanings for each word. A word like “bar” could refer to a drinking establishment, a metal rod, or a unit of pressure. Context clues from surrounding words help determine which meaning applies.
Practice Pattern Recognition
The more Connections puzzles you solve, the better you’ll become at recognizing common category types. Word categories often include:
- Synonyms for common actions or emotions
- Items within specific categories (tools, foods, animals)
- Words that share prefixes, suffixes, or linguistic patterns
- Pop culture references from specific time periods or media
- Professional or technical terminology from particular fields
Manage Your Mistakes Wisely
With only four mistakes allowed, use your attempts strategically. If you’re uncertain about a grouping, consider whether those words might fit elsewhere before committing. It’s often better to start with the category you’re most confident about rather than guessing at trickier connections.
Reader Engagement and Community
Connections has built a vibrant community of daily solvers who share strategies and celebrate victories. Many players develop personal approaches, from tackling the easiest category first to starting with the most challenging purple group.
What’s your preferred strategy for approaching these puzzles? Do you find certain category types more intuitive than others? Share your experiences and techniques with fellow puzzle enthusiasts—the collective wisdom of the community often reveals new approaches and insights.
Some players keep solving journals to track their improvement over time, noting which category types give them the most trouble. This self-analysis can help identify areas for focused practice and improvement.
Frequently Asked Questions
The puzzle editors at The New York Times carefully craft each day’s categories to provide a range of difficulty levels while maintaining fair, solvable connections. Categories progress from accessible (yellow) to challenging (purple), with each group designed to test different types of knowledge and thinking patterns.
Purple categories often involve wordplay, require specialized knowledge, or depend on lateral thinking rather than straightforward associations. They might include puns, abbreviations, words with letters removed or added, or connections that become obvious only after solving.
While words might seem to fit multiple categories, each puzzle has only one correct solution. The challenge lies in identifying the intended groupings rather than the most obvious associations.
While words might seem to fit multiple categories, each puzzle has only one correct solution. The challenge lies in identifying the intended groupings rather than the most obvious associations.
Regular practice helps develop pattern recognition skills. Start with categories you feel most confident about, and don’t hesitate to use the shuffle feature to reorganize words and spot new potential connections.
Take a step back and consider each word’s multiple meanings. Look for shared characteristics beyond obvious thematic connections—consider syllable counts, word lengths, linguistic patterns, or cultural references.
Today’s Connections #833 demonstrates the puzzle’s ability to blend contemporary references with clever wordplay. From the tech-savvy touchscreen gestures to the linguistic creativity of the vegetable category, each grouping offers a different type of mental challenge.
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