NYT Connections Answers: The New York Times’ daily word puzzle, Connections, is back with the February 12 challenge, and today’s grid is sneaky in a fun way. Players once again had to sort 16 words into four hidden groups. At first look, many words seemed to fit together, but the real links were different. That’s what makes this game so addictive.
Like Wordle, Connections resets every day and gives players a fresh brain workout. If today’s puzzle confused you, don’t worry, here’s a simple, clear breakdown with hints and the full solution.
What Is Connections And How Do You Play?
Connections is a daily word grouping game. You see 16 words on the board. Your goal is to sort them into four groups of four. Each group shares one common theme. The hard part is that many words look like they belong together when they really don’t. These are traps meant to trick you.
For example, “Hook,” “Nana,” “Peter,” and “Wendy” are all Peter Pan characters. Another example is “Action,” “Ballpark,” “Go,” and “Stick,” which all fit before the word “Figure.”
You can only make four wrong guesses. After the fourth mistake, the game stops and shows the answers. Each group also has a colour that shows the difficulty level:
- Yellow (easiest)
- Green (easy)
- Blue (medium)
- Purple (hardest)
It sounds simple, but some days the word links are very clever and can fool even regular players.
Hints & Full Solution To NYT Connections (February 12)
Here are today’s hints:
- Yellow: They’re similar to “crafting”.
- Green: Find opposites of “loose”.
- Blue: It’s related to a popular sport.
- Purple: Add someone “highborn”.
Extra hints:
- Every theme except blue contains at least two words starting with the same letter.
- “Yank” and “drag” are in different groups.
One word from each group:
- Yellow: Produce
- Green: Firm
- Blue: Jay
- Purple: Dancing
Full Solution for February 12:
- Yellow (Construct): Form, Make, Mould, Produce
- Green (Fixed In Place): Fast, Firm, Frozen, Tight
- Blue (MLB Player, For Short): A, Card, Jay, Yank
- Purple (___ Queen): Dairy, Dancing, Drag, May
Today’s puzzle mixed building words, “not loose” words, baseball short names, and phrases that can come before “Queen.” Many players got pulled toward wrong pairs like “Yank” and “Drag,” but they belonged to different groups.
The purple set was the trickiest unless you spotted the pattern with “Queen.” A smart and playful puzzle overall.


