Purple was rough today. Honestly, it feels like a stumper for a Tuesday. Or maybe a Sunday. Hard to say until you actually see the board.
If you’re hunting for more than just Connections, there are daily hints for Wordle, Strands, the Mini Crossword, and even a sports edition of Connections. Click around if you’re hungry. But for now, let’s talk about the main event.
You can feed your data obsession on the official Times Games site.
They have a bot, just like the one for Wordle. Drop in your puzzle, get a score. It crunches the numbers for you. Win streaks. Perfect scores. Total games played. If you’re the type who keeps a spreadsheet of your life, this is your playground.
The Clues
Four groups. One color code system. Yellow is easy, right? Then green. Blue gets harder. Purple? That’s the wall.
- Yellow hint: Tech accessories.
- Green hint: Crammed together.
- Blue hint: Specific elements.
- Purple hint: Cheep, cheep.
The hints don’t give it away, do they? “Specific elements” sounds like science class. “Crammed together” could mean anything.
The Answers
Yellow: Computer peripherals
Straightforward. You use these things every day. Or used to, depending on your workflow.
- Microphone
- Monitor
- Printer
- Trackpad
No tricks here. Just hardware.
Green: Tightly packed
Synonyms for things that don’t have any space to breathe.
- Compact
- Compressed
- Dense
- Squashed
Simple wordplay. Connect the dots, move on.
Blue: Hazardous elemental metals
Here is where it gets tricky. Not because the words are hard to spell, but because knowing chemistry isn’t exactly part of the daily routine. Unless you work in a lab. Do you work in a lab?
- Francium
- Lead
- Mercury
- Polonium
Dangerous stuff. Heavy. Toxic.
Purple: Starting with bird homophones
This was the pain point. The “Cheep, cheep” hint was subtle. Maybe too subtle. It’s a pun hunt.
- Cranium (starts with crane )
- Croquette (starts with crow )
- Ductile (starts with duck )
- Hockey (starts with hawk )
Hockey isn’t a bird. It’s the start of the sound a bird makes. Or the bird’s name, depending on how you hear it. It’s brain twisting.
The Hard Ones
Looking back, some puzzles hit different. These were the ones that made people swear at their screens.
- No. 1: Things that can run (candidate, faucet, mascara, nose)
- No. 2: Power __ (nap, plant, ranger, trip)
- No. 3: Streets on screen (Elm, Fear, Jump, Sesame)
- No. 4: One in a dozen (egg, juror, month, rose)
- No. 5: Things you can set (mood, record, table, volleyball)
Patterns emerge. They don’t always make sense at the time. You play, you lose a bit of pride, and then you move to tomorrow.
What will June 26 bring? Only time tells. 🕊️
