Looking for clues for today’s Connections answers? The Connections answers on March 20 for puzzle #648 are a bit easier than yesterday’s puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle’s difficulty at 2.7 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today’s answers so you can keep your Connections streak going. And if the clues aren’t enough, you’ll find all four answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words.
Plus, we’re including a reflection on yesterday’s puzzle, #647, in case you’re reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #648. Only read on if you want to know today’s Connections answers.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
Today’s Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Unlike our guide to today’s Wordle answer, where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category’s difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you’ve made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.
Today’s Connections words are: Genie, Bungee, Strait, Vocal, Ship, Extension, Direct, Message, Loud, Sound, Spinal, Channel, Umbilical, Bay, Lightning, and Frank.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Outspoken
- 🟩 Green: Bodies of water
- 🟦 Blue: Kinds of cords
- 🟪 Purple: Things in bottles
These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today’s Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.
Here’s a larger hints: Clear out your cord drawer for a bottle of water that’s a little loud.
Today’s Connections answers
So, what are today’s Connections answers for game #648?
Drumroll, please…
- 🟨 Outspoken: Direct, frank, loud, vocal
- 🟩 Bodies of water: Bay, channel, sound, strait
- 🟦 Kinds of cords: Bungee, extension, spinal, umbilical
- 🟪 Things in bottles: Genie, lightning, message, ship
The first pair of words that popped out to me were direct and frank. Perusing the board, I saw loud and vocal. I assumed this was the yellow group so I skipped them for the other groups.
Bay and channel stuck out to me as coastal waters. This lead to sound and strait mostly because I was picturing maps of the Seattle area.
From there I saw umbilical and thought ‘cord.’ Quickly grabbed extension, spinal and bungee for what I thought was the purple set. Alas, it was the blue.
This left the purple group as things in bottles; genie, lightning, message and ship.
And I wrapped up the day by finally putting in the yellow group.
Yesterday’s Connections answers
- 🟨 Signify: Convey, express, mean, spell
- 🟩 Web browser buttons: Back, extensions, forward, refresh
- 🟦 Parts of a road: Divider, lane, median, shoulder
- 🟪 À/a la ____: Carte, king, mode, plancha
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #646, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Thought I had a nice down the line going today but messed up with that dang yellow. Ah well.
I saw carte and my inclination was a la carte. A la mode stuck out next, which made me want some ice cream. I forgot about a la plancha for a moment, which means grilled on a metal plate.
I got the blue category next as I was looking for more of a math connection with mean and median. It wasn’t working but I saw divider and figured for roads. Lane and shoulder leapt out next.
I was looking for green next but but in convey, express, mean and spell first. I guessed wrong, it was the yellow group.
So we ended with back, extensions, forward and refresh as web browser buttons.