NYT Connections: Revealing Today’s Puzzle Categories and Solutions for April 9

Each day, The New York Times presents Connections to help readers build their vocabulary and develop detection skills through word association challenges. On April 9, the word game Connections showed four diverse categories that included Shakespearean references and shapes.

The game Connections puts players in charge of placing 16 words into four groups made up of four words each per category. The game’s rank system starts at yellow easy and becomes harder through purple.

Today’s puzzle provides an unusual combination of categories that seem unrelated at first. The yellow category contains words in reference to shapes and the green category displays different methods of hitting things or people. People who understand literature may spot the blue category relates to a classic Shakespearean play while the purple category evaluates word associations known to many.

For players seeking assistance without complete spoilers, here are categorical hints:

• Yellow: Think about three-dimensional objects with no edges
• Green: These words all refer to hitting with force
• Blue: These creatures appear in the infamous witches’ scene in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.”
• Purple: Each word can follow “Fox” to create a compound word or phrase

The full solutions for today’s Connections puzzle are:

• Yellow (Round three-dimensional objects): BALL, GLOBE, ORB, SPHERE
• Green (Punch): POP, POUND, SLUG, SOCK
• Blue (Animals in the witches’ brew in “Macbeth”): BAT, DOG, FROG, NEWT

Purple (Fox___): GLOVE, HOLE, HOUND, TROT