Many of the words in today's Connections puzzle represent parts of a whole, leaving you to combine ideas to form a complete concept. I would compare today's puzzle to a classic jigsaw puzzle, with parts that fit well only based on the context of their group. However, to understand which phrases make the most sense with each other, you may need some clues to give you a head start.

You only have four chances to make mistakes for today's Connections puzzle, giving you less room for error compared to Wordle daily challenges. Four words belong to four different categories, but don't rely on the first definition you think of for each phrase. As I've learned the hard way, this puzzle is trying to trick you by presenting words with seemingly obvious meanings.

Today's Connections Category Hints

April 23 #682

I was able to solve today's puzzle by recognizing the theme - parts of a whole. Every group of words in the puzzle is either used to describe something that takes place as part of a larger event or represents physical parts of something complete. I noticed that some words were literal prefixes to larger , while others were simply physical pieces I had to put together.

If you are struggling to identify today's categories for the puzzle, here are some helpful hints to get you started:

• One category is about things that make up plants whose colors might change during the fall.
• One category is about things that are part of a companion animal you befriend.
• One category is about things that make up an event that causes you to laugh.
• One category is about things that are prefixes for a word used to describe a long, metal rod.

If you want to go all out with some of your clue-searching, you should look at the category names to get some extra help. There are also spoilers for each category if you find yourself needing to solve a single category to finish up.

Today's Connections Answers

April 23 #682

Yellow Answers: Revealed & Explained

This part of the puzzle was the easiest for me to solve, solely because the ROOT and TRUNK concepts pair well right away. When you consider the theme of today's puzzle, you will immediately recognize how BRANCH and LEAF are also parts of trees you might be seeing more frequently with the turn of spring. Be careful not to use BEAN in this group, despite that word's status as a plant in alternate definitions.

Green Answers: Revealed & Explained

The first word I recognized in this portion of the puzzle was MUZZLE, as it has very few definitions. Putting MUZZLE with PAW and TAIL helps you form the animal connection between each phrase with ease, but the last word can be a bit confusing. Some pet owners may mistake BEAN for the toe beans of their favorite pets, when FUR is the right word to have in this group for a more literal part of an animal's larger whole.

Blue Answers: Revealed & Explained

ACT can mean a lot of things, from the parts of a play to the verb "acting" to fake doing something. Once you put ACT with SKETCH or GAG, though, you can understand the comedic element to each word's alternate definition. I paired these words in the same group to quickly add BIT to the mix to complete this section of the puzzle.

Purple Answers: Revealed & Explained

This part of the puzzle was pretty tricky for me, as I initially thought TAD and BIT went together as units of time. However, upon some reflection, I realized that FLAG and MAY could have a connection since Memorial Day is in May. While the wrong reasoning, putting the last two words of BEAN and TAD together created the rest of the category, allowing me to stumble to the right answer.

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