Finding yourself stumped by today’s New York Times Connections puzzle? You’re not alone. The April 3rd edition offered an interesting mix of everyday items with some surprisingly tricky connections. After solving yesterday’s NYT Connections, let’s break down the solution and see how these seemingly random words fit together.
Yellow Category: PRINTED NOTIFICATION
- ANNOUNCEMENT
- BULLETIN
- NOTICE
- POSTER
This category brings together different ways information is publicly shared in printed form. Whether it’s a bulletin board in your office, a notice on a community wall, or a poster advertising an event, these are all ways we communicate messages to groups of people through physical displays.
Green Category: SEEN AT A GROCERY CHECKOUT COUNTER
- CONVEYOR BELT
- REGISTER
- SCALE
- SCANNER
Anyone who’s been grocery shopping will recognize these items! The checkout area features a conveyor belt to move your items forward, a register where you pay, a scale for weighing produce, and a scanner to read barcodes. This category cleverly groups everyday objects found in a specific location we all visit.
Blue Category: THINGS WITH TABS
- BROWSER
- FOLDER
- KEYBOARD
- SODA CAN
This was perhaps the trickiest category to spot! Each of these items features tabs, but in different contexts. Your internet browser has tabs for multiple pages, file folders have tabs for organizing, keyboards have tab keys, and soda cans have those little metal pull tabs. A perfect example of how Connections finds unexpected links between everyday items!
Purple Category: PALM ___
The challenging purple category required you to recognize what word could precede each of these terms. “Palm Beach” is a famous location in Florida, a “Palm Reader” tells fortunes, “Palm Sunday” is a religious observance, and a “Palm Tree” is a tropical plant. The missing word “PALM” connects them all!
Why This Puzzle Was Challenging
What made today’s puzzle especially tricky was how some words seemed to belong in multiple categories. For instance, “SCANNER” might have initially seemed technology-related like “BROWSER” or “KEYBOARD.” Similarly, “REGISTER” could have been mentally grouped with forms of record-keeping like “NOTICE” or “ANNOUNCEMENT.”
The “THINGS WITH TABS” category was particularly clever, as it required thinking about physical and digital tabs across different objects. This is exactly the kind of lateral thinking that makes Connections such an addictive daily brain teaser.
Did you manage to solve today’s puzzle without using all your mistakes? Which category did you figure out first? The grocery checkout items seemed most straightforward, but everyone approaches these puzzles differently!
Come back tomorrow for another Connections challenge, and remember: sometimes the connection isn’t what you initially think!
