NYT Connections today — hints and answers for Saturday, September 7 (game #454)

NYT Connections homescreen on a phone, on a purple background
(Image credit: New York Times)

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Your Connections expert
Marc McLaren
Your Connections expert
Marc McLaren

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief and has been obsessed with Wordle and its ilk for more than two years. He's authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar, including a daily today's Wordle answer column and a detailed analysis of the most common letters in Wordle in every position. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.

NYT Connections today (game #454) - today's words

NYT Connections hints for game 454 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

  • TANK
  • GLOVE
  • SCALE
  • TEE
  • COACH
  • ROCKS
  • POLO
  • CROP
  • FILTER
  • BALL
  • ROTATE
  • MUSTANG
  • GODIVA
  • FLIP
  • PUMP
  • DRIVER

NYT Connections today (game #454) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

  • Yellow: Photoshop skills
  • Green: Tiger essentials
  • Blue: Fish things
  • Purple: Equine badges

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #454) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

  • YELLOW: WAYS TO TRANSFORM AN IMAGE
  • GREEN: THINGS USED IN GOLF
  • BLUE: AQUARIUM PURCHASES
  • PURPLE: LOGOS WITH HORSES

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #454) - the answers

NYT Connections answers for game 454 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #454, are…

  • YELLOW: WAYS TO TRANSFORM AN IMAGE CROP, FLIP, ROTATE, SCALE
  • GREEN: THINGS USED IN GOLF BALL, DRIVER, GLOVE, TEE
  • BLUE: AQUARIUM PURCHASES FILTER, PUMP, ROCKS, TANK
  • PURPLE: LOGOS WITH HORSES COACH, GODIVA, MUSTANG, POLO

  • My rating: Hard
  • My score: 3 mistakes

Here's yet another super-tough Connections puzzle, guaranteed to get the old gray matter working – or to leave you frustrated at its obtuse nature.

In fairness, a couple of today's groups aren't too bad. I use Photoshop on a daily basis, and so the yellow WAYS TO TRANSFORM AN IMAGE connection stood out to me immediately. Green, THINGS USED IN GOLF, caused me more problems – mainly because I thought some of the words went elsewhere, for instance BALL, FILTER, TANK all seemed like they might be related. But I got it in the end – which left blue and purple.

Purple – which is LOGOS WITH HORSES – was ridiculously difficult. I've not even heard of a company called GODIVA or COACH, though I assume one exists or this group would make even less sense. But I solved it through a combination of trial and error and guesswork, in that I knew GODIVA, POLO and MUSTANG all had a horse connection, and got lucky by adding COACH to it.

That left, blue, AQUARIUM PURCHASES, which was also tricky – but by then I was able to solve it by default, with one guess remaining. Phew!

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.


Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Friday, 6 September, game #453)

  • YELLOW: QUANTITY AMOUNT, COUNT, NUMBER, TOTAL
  • GREEN: INCIDENT AFFAIR, EPISODE, EVENT, MATTER
  • BLUE: THINGS RECEIVED IN THE MAIL BILL, CARD, CATALOG, LETTER
  • PURPLE: WHAT “SPRING” MIGHT REFER TO BOUNCE, COIL, GEYSER, SEASON

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

Marc McLaren
Global Editor in Chief

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He's also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).

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