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NYT Connections hint and answers, Fri 31st Jan

Need some Connections hints for today? Read our guide for help with Connections #599.

An abstract image with an altered Connections logo in the centre, surrounded by circles connected by webbed lines.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT
Marloes Valentina Stella avatar
Guide by Marloes Valentina Stella Contributor
Published on

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's? Check out the Connections hint for Wednesday 12th February!

Need a hint for today's Connections on Friday, 31st January? It's perfectly normal to struggle with a Connections puzzle, but there's no reason to give up. If you need a hint or two (or three, or four...) we've got you covered.

Sometimes the solution is right around the corner - your brain just hasn't made that tricky link yet. Let us help you find the solution to this day's NYT Connections puzzle with a bunch of hints and tips.

In this guide:

Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

Snoot Breast Free Chest
Butter Snob Back Expert
Beak Trunk Critic Case
Connoisseur Snout Crate Honker

How to play Connections

Connections is one of the most popular (and challenging) daily puzzle games published by the New York Times (owners of Wordle). The aim of Connections is to group the 16 words of the day into four groups, where each group of four words has a common theme.

For instance, the words "Hook", "Nana", "Peter", and "Wendy" are all Peter Pan characters. Or to take another example, "Action", "Ballpark", "Go", and "Stick" are all words which commonly come just before the word "Figure".

Your job is to figure out what these themes are that connect the various words together - but be wary, because a lot of the time there are deceptive red herring connections placed purely to throw you off! To win the game, you have to find all four Connections without making 4 mistakes. On your fourth mistake, the game is over and the answer is revealed automatically.

Each of the four groups in each day's Connections puzzle is also assigned a different colour, which represents how easy or difficult the Connection is to find. These colours are: Yellow (Easiest), Green (Easy), Blue (Medium), and Purple (Hardest).

Connections hint for Friday 31st January

Here are your Connections hints for today:

  • Yellow: You can put some stuff in there.
  • Green: Like a nose, but not quite.
  • Blue: If you have a special interest, this is what you may become.
  • Purple: These words are related to the same water sport.
  • Extra hint 1: Every word starting with 'C' belongs to either the yellow or blue group.
  • Extra hint 2: Have you ever heard of the 'butterfly technique'?

If you need a bit more help, tap the spoiler text below to reveal one word belonging to each group:

  • Yellow: Trunk
  • Green: Beak
  • Blue: Critic
  • Purple: Breast
Spoiler warning! Today's Connections groups are revealed just below!

What are today's Connections groups?

If you need an even bigger clue to figure out today's Connections puzzle, below we'll reveal the four correct Connections groups - the themes which link together each set of four words in the Connections grid.

Here are the Connections groups for today:

  • Yellow: Storage Containers
  • Green: Schnozz
  • Blue: Ones With Discerning Tastes
  • Purple: Starts Of Swimming Strokes

Now that you know the themes for the various different Connections in today's puzzle, see if you can solve it! If not, check below for the full answer.

Spoiler warning! Today's Connections answer lies ahead!

What is today's Connections answer?

Here is the answer to today's Connections puzzle on Friday, 31st January:

  • Yellow: Storage Containers (Case, Chest, Crate, Trunk)
  • Green: Schnozz (Beak, Honker, Snoot, Snout)
  • Blue: Ones With Discerning Tastes (Connoisseur, Critic, Expert, Snob)
  • Purple: Starts Of Swimming Strokes (Back, Breast, Butter, Free)
A screenshot of the Connections answers of January 31, 2025.
Here are the January 31 Connections answers. | Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT

The trick to solving today's Connections puzzle is to not stare yourself silly at unrelated body parts. Okay, that sounds weird, but I'm referring to the words 'chest', 'breast', and 'back' - plus words like 'snout' to a lesser extent. I was convinced I'd found a connection there, but it was just the NYT successfully throwing me off. Annoyingly, I did spot the 'animal noses', but wasted a try by swapping 'trunk' and 'honker'.

Since I couldn't makes sense of the others yet, I went on to complete today's easiest group; the blue one. I then caught on to the containers group and placed 'trunk' in the correct category - this was the essential step to finding the schnozz category as well.

So yes; I found the purple group simply by forming the easier ones first today. If you aren't an expert on swimming, I bet you had to follow the same steps. Admittedly, I do know all of these swimming strokes, but I just didn't spot them in the word mesh. Oh well, as long as you find the solution in the end, right?

Congratulations if you got today's Connections answer right, with or without the help of our handy hints above! And if you didn't succeed today, don't worry - a new Connections puzzle is released every day at midnight, so you can try again tomorrow, just like with Wordle!

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