Skip to main content Tom's Guide Tom's Guide Search Tom's Guide View Profile Best Picks Entertainment Technology Magazines Why subscribe? The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviews Try a single issue or save on a subscription Issues delivered straight to your door or device From$12.99View Amazon Spring Sale MacBook Air M4 Nintendo Switch 2 Best mattress Wordle Today NYT Connections today hints and answers — Friday, March 21 (#649) Scott Younker 20 March 2025 Get clues and answers for today's NYT Connections to keep your streak When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Future) Today's hint Today's answers Yesterday's answers Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on March 21 for puzzle #649 are harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.3 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, #648, in case you're reading this in a different time zone. You may like NYT Connections today hints and answers — Thursday, March 20 (#648) NYT Connections today hints and answers — Wednesday, March 19 (#647) Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #649. 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 (Image credit: New York Times) 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: Compass, Icon, Soap, World, Legend, Exam, Stencil, Chart, Scene, Ruler, Mitzvah, Circle, Great, Sphere, Lion, and T-Square. Sign up to get the BEST of Tom's Guide direct to your inbox. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty: 🟨 Yellow: Milieu 🟩 Green: Luminary 🟦 Blue: Architectural drawing tools 🟪 Purple: Bar ____ 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: Get to the bar for some great conversation about architecture. Today's Connections answers So, what are today's Connections answers for game #649? Drumroll, please... 🟨 Milieu: Circle, scene, sphere, world 🟩 Luminary: Great, icon, legend, icon 🟦 Architectural drawing tools: Compass, ruler, stencil, t-square 🟪 Bar ____: Chart, exam, mitzvah, soap I started with the blue category today but wasn't thinking architecture. I was thinking measurements with compass, ruler, and stencil, though a t-square is the most architecutral-specific tool of the four. From there I saw Mitzvah and thought bar. Soap was nearby and I was off to the bar. Bar exam came next followed by chart for the purple group. I wasn't sure which group was the green or yellow here but I guessed that great, icon, legend and lion were green. Which left circle, scene, sphere and world as milieus. To be honest, it was a coin flip here as I think more people would trip on milieu over the luminary words. Yesterday's Connections answers 🟨 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 Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #648, which had a difficulty rating of 2.7 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion. 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. See more Gaming News Scott Younker Social Links Navigation West Coast Reporter Scott Younker is the West Coast Reporter at Tom’s Guide. He covers all the lastest tech news. He’s been involved in tech since 2011 at various outlets and is on an ongoing hunt to build the easiest to use home media system. When not writing about the latest devices, you are more than welcome to discuss board games or disc golf with him. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. 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