Today’s NYT Connections puzzle (Sunday, January 4) is solved by identifying four distinct groups of words. This guide distills the day’s themes, lays out the four word sets exactly as they appear, and provides practical tips to help solvers check their progress. The notes compiled here draw directly from the published hints and reveal the four groups and their answers, alongside clarifications to steer players toward correct connections.
The yellow group centers on a paper publication theme: Copy, Edition, Issue, Print. The green group clusters terms that describe a spool or winding imagery: Coil, Crank, Reel, Wind. The blue group pinpoints actions associated with a defensive football player: Blitz, Block, Sack, Tackle. The purple group collects synonyms for butt plus a starting-letter cue: Drear, Etail, Grump, Scan.
Context from the hints confirms the puzzle’s structure: each theme contains at least one four-letter word, and certain placements are designed to avoid simple misdirections. For instance, Drear and Blitz appear in different groups, a reminder that cross-group patterns matter more than surface word associations. The notes also indicate spoiler cues and spoiler text styling to help readers navigate the reveal if they choose to skip ahead.
Here are the four groups and their answers, exactly as intended for today: Yellow: Copy, Edition, Issue, Print. Green: Coil, Crank, Reel, Wind. Blue: Blitz, Block, Sack, Tackle. Purple: Drear, Etail, Grump, Scan. These four sets constitute today’s connections and lead to the day’s solution once the group identities are established.
Solving tips and notes for readers who want a more guided approach: every theme includes at least one four-letter word, which can serve as an anchor when you’re unsure about a cluster. The observation that Drear and Blitz belong to different groups is a useful reminder to separate surface relationships from the actual thematic links. The day’s hints are designed to help you verify your progress without resorting to guesswork; use the four-letter anchors and the group exemplars to check whether a candidate word fits a given theme.
If you’re looking for the exact word sets to confirm your progress, the four connections are as follows: Yellow corresponds to a Paper Publication theme (Copy, Edition, Issue, Print), Green to a Spool/Wind theme (Coil, Crank, Reel, Wind), Blue to football-defensive actions (Blitz, Block, Sack, Tackle), and Purple to synonyms for butt plus a starting-letter cue (Drear, Etail, Grump, Scan). Together, these form today’s complete solution and can guide you through the puzzle’s four groups.
For readers who want the primary source context, Rock Paper Shotgun summarizes NYT Connections hints for Sunday, January 4 and provides a public-facing walkthrough with the same four-group structure and final answers. A new Connections puzzle resets at midnight, so solvers can try again the next day with a fresh grid and new themes.