Welcome to Sunday's Connections. Puzzle #1,253 is live, and below is our usual ladder: the board, then hints that get more specific, then the four groups behind a reveal.
Our read of the board: 2 tiles are phrases rather than single words. As always, the purple group is the one built to mislead; if you see an obvious category of five or six words, that is the trap.
Today's board
The sixteen words, in the order they appear on the board. No spoilers here.
JETTRAVELSLEEKRECORDREGISTRYARCHIVEINCLINEDDRESS CODERAPSCALLIONALL-TIMERSVPCARTESIANHISTORICASTRALOCTONIONUNPRECEDENTED
Hints for today's Connections
Three levels of help. Level one nudges, level two points, level three names the categories one at a time.
Level 1 · The categories, by first letterYellow: starts with U, one wordGreen: starts with W, 3 wordsBlue: starts with _, one wordPurple: starts with E, 7 words
Level 2 · One word from each groupYellow contains ALL-TIMEGreen contains REGISTRYBlue contains INCLINEDPurple contains SLEEK
Level 3 · The category namesYellow category
UNMATCHED
Green category
WEDDING WEBSITE SECTIONS
Blue category
___ PLANE
Purple category
ENDING IN VEGETABLES IN THE ALLIUM FAMILY
Today's Connections answers
The full solution to Connections #1,253 is behind the button, yellow to purple. Nothing is shown until you click.
▶ Reveal the answers to Connections #1,253
UNMATCHED
ALL-TIME, HISTORIC, RECORD, UNPRECEDENTED
Yellow · the most straightforward group
WEDDING WEBSITE SECTIONS
DRESS CODE, REGISTRY, RSVP, TRAVEL
Green · usually a step harder
___ PLANE
ASTRAL, CARTESIAN, INCLINED, JET
Blue · where the red herrings start to bite
ENDING IN VEGETABLES IN THE ALLIUM FAMILY
ARCHIVE, OCTONION, RAPSCALLION, SLEEK
Purple · the trickiest, often wordplay
Yesterday's Connections
Connections #1,252 on Saturday, November 14 had these four groups (our full write-up is still up):
CUTTING-EDGEADVANCED, FOREMOST, MODERN, PROGRESSIVE
LOCATIONS FOR AN INSTITUTIONCAMPUS, CENTER, COMPLEX, FACILITY
STRATEGY BOARD GAMESCHESS, GO, OTHELLO, STRATEGO
BABY GEAR WITH FIRST LETTER CHANGEDBATTLE, MARRIAGE, MOTTLE, TRIB
How Connections works
Sixteen words hide four groups of four that share something in common. Pick four, submit, and the row locks in if you are right; four wrong submissions end the game. The groups are colour-coded by difficulty, yellow being the most direct and purple the most devious, and most boards include at least one word that could plausibly sit in two groups. Today's puzzle was edited by Wyna Liu at The New York Times.
A reliable habit: before submitting anything, find the five or six words that seem to belong to one obvious category and work out which of them is the imposter. Solving the strange group first is often easier than solving the obvious one.
Come back tomorrow for Connections #1,254, and find today's Wordle and the rest of the Puzzles desk in the section menu.