NYT Connections Hints, Answers for Dec. 14, 2025 (#917)

NYT Connections Hints & Answers for Dec. 14, 2025 (#917)

The NYT Connections puzzle for Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025 flips expectations in a surprising way. While the purple category is usually the toughest, today it turns out to be the most approachable — if you’re familiar with a certain group of famous fictional animals. Meanwhile, the yellow and blue groups cause more hesitation than expected.

If you’re stuck sorting the 16 words into four clean categories, don’t worry — below you’ll find spoiler-light hints first, followed by the full confirmed answers for each group.

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Today’s Connections Hints (Dec. 14, 2025)

Ranked from easiest (Yellow) to hardest (Purple), as presented in-game:

🟨 Yellow Group Hint:

Butter up.

🟩 Green Group Hint:

Like The Little Match Girl.

🟦 Blue Group Hint:

Letter that makes no sound.

🟪 Purple Group Hint:

Oink!

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Today’s Connections Answers

🟨 Yellow Group — Lay It on Thick

FAWN, FLATTER, GUSH, PRAISE

All four words relate to excessive admiration or flattery, making this group deceptively simple once the theme clicks.

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🟩 Green Group — Hans Christian Andersen Figures

DUCKLING, EMPEROR, MERMAID, PRINCESS

Each answer comes from well-known fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, including The Ugly Duckling and The Little Mermaid.

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🟦 Blue Group — Silent “L”

CALF, CHALK, COLONEL, WOULD

A pronunciation-based category. While colonel often trips up solvers, all four words contain an “L” that is not pronounced.

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🟪 Purple Group — Fictional Pigs

BABE, NAPOLEON, PIGLET, PORKY

One of the friendliest purple groups in recent memory — featuring iconic pigs from literature, animation, and film.

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Expert Analysis

Today’s puzzle is a great example of difficulty inversion. The purple group is straightforward for pop-culture–savvy solvers, while the blue group’s phonetic trick proves more challenging. Categories like silent letters reward careful reading and pronunciation awareness rather than surface-level meaning.

Difficulty ranking for most solvers today:
Purple → Yellow → Green → Blue (hardest)

This puzzle also shows how Connections balances language mechanics, literary knowledge, and pop culture in a single grid.

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FAQs

1. Why was today’s purple group so easy?

It focused on well-known fictional pigs, making recognition immediate for many players.

2. What was the trickiest group today?

The blue group (silent “L”), due to pronunciation-based reasoning.

3. Who is Hans Christian Andersen?

A famous Danish author known for fairy tales like The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling.

4. How many groups are there in NYT Connections?

There are always four groups: Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple.