NYT Crossword Puzzle Clues and Solutions for Friday, 25th April 2025
Rollin' with the Puzzle: Here's a fun dive into today's Connections, April 25, 2025, NYT edition (#684)! Let's kick things off with some sneaky hints and unmask those tricky themes.
Warinner Warnings:- Yellow cat: Don't stick this where it doesn't belong. It's for chewing, not furniture. Any guesses? Yep, you got it! We're talking about GUM FLAVORS. It's time to taste those tasty tastes: BUBBLEGUM, CINNAMON, MENTHOL, and WINTERGREEN.
- Green cat: These are game-changing words. They might lead to a mind-blowing "A-ha!" moment. Yet again, it's a STARTING POINT: CATALYST, LAUNCHPAD, SPARK, and SPRINGBOARD.
- Blue cat: Classic toe-tappers, eh? If you're a fan of jazz, show tunes, and crooners, you'll eat this category for breakfast. Here we go: Autumn Leaves, Summertime, Unforgettable, and Witchcraft.
- Purple cat: Hmm, fill-in-the-blank time. We're looking for a word related to a cylindrical structure. FALLOPIAN, INNER, TEST, or VACUUM? Well, let's see if we can't solve this mystery.
Spoiler Alert: Please scroll slowly if you don't want things spoiled. We're about to reveal the goods.
- Gum Flavors: Go ahead, yoga your jaw and guess! It's BUBBLEGUM, CINNAMON, MENTHOL, and WINTERGREEN.
- Starting Point: Gather 'round, folks! Here are the catalysts of your success: CATALYST, LAUNCHPAD, SPARK, and SPRINGBOARD.
- Great American Songbook Songs: Let's pour ourselves a glass of jazz and get comfy. Autumn Leaves, Summertime, Unforgettable, and Witchcraft.
- _ Tube: Alright, folks, we're on to a mystery. FALLOPIAN, INNER, TEST, or VACUUM? Give it a shot, but let's be honest, who reveals a vacuum in the female reproductive system? I'll endorse FALLOPIAN, but let's not get too scientific.
How I Solved Today's Connections:FALLOPIAN pops out first because it's always got the "tube" angle. INNER and TEST could also play that angle. Meanwhile, SPARK, LAUNCHPAD, CATALYST, and SPRINGBOARD? Huh, those might be starting points or things that accelerate progress.
BUBBLEGUM, CINNAMON, MENTHOL, and WINTERGREEN? Chewing gum flavors! Yum.
Autumn Leaves, Summertime, Unforgettable, and Witchcraft? They sound like jazz or show tunes. Yup, the Great American Songbook!
Alright, we've got FALLOPIAN down for the _ Tube cat. That leaves us with AUTUMN LEAVES, UNFORGETTABLE, WITCHCRAFT, and SUMMERTIME. Seems like song titles, but which songbook?
Playing Connections:Locate the Connections game on the New York Times website or Games app. You'll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your task is to select a group of four tiles that share something in common. Sometimes they're the same thing (e.g., types of weather), but sometimes there's some wordplay involved (e.g., BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH).
Select four items and hit "Submit." If you're correct, the category and color will be revealed (yellow, green, blue, then purple). If you're wrong, you can try again.
You win when you've correctly identified all four groups, but if you make four mistakes before finishing, the game's over, and the answers are revealed.
Winning Connections:To win, remember that the groupings are tricky. Expect overlapping groups. For instance, one puzzle included six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON was part of a group of "painters," including CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER. EGG belonged to a group of things that come by the dozen: JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH.
If you're stuck, try to look at the words with no apparent connection to the others. If WHISTLER only makes you think of the painting "Whistler's Mother," you might be onto something. When I solved that one, I even checked if Close was a painter.
Another winning strategy: scan through our daily hints. Check back tomorrow for another challenge!
- Today's NYT Connections, April 25, 2025 (#684) serves as a launchpad for general-news and entertainment, offering sneaky hints to unmask tricky themes.
- The Yellow cat in Warinner Warnings suggests popular gum flavors: BUBBLEGUM, CINNAMON, MENTHOL, and WINTERGREEN.
- The Green cat hints at game-changing words like CATALYST, LAUNCHPAD, SPARK, and SPRINGBOARD.
- The Blue cat category offers hints to songs from the Great American Songbook: Autumn Leaves, Summertime, Unforgettable, and Witchcraft.
- In the Purple cat, we find words related to the female reproductive system, with Fallopian appearing as a hidden connection, while the exact answer for the _ Tube remains a mystery and topic for speculation.
