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NYT Connections hint and answers for Friday, 17th Jan

Need some Connections hints for today? Read our guide for help with Connections #585.

An abstract image with an altered Connections logo in the centre, surrounded by circles connected by webbed lines.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT
Jeremy Blum avatar
Guide by Jeremy Blum Guides Writer
Published on

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's? Check out the Connections hint for Wednesday 22nd January!

Need a hint for today's Connections on Friday, 17th January? Connections is no joke, and the process of figuring out the links between word groups can be an intricate one! There's no shame in looking at our guides to help put you on the right path, and today's puzzle is a real stumper.

Instead of endlessly scratching your head, read on for our breakdown of each Connections group. We've got a series of gentle tips to point you in the right direction, but if you'd rather have the answers spelled out for you straightaway, we've detailed those as well.

In this guide:

Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

Hit Opera Banger Rosebud
Pepperoni Bop Edge Link
Tap Contrabass Brat Safari
Autoharp Chrome Knock Sausage

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 17th January

Here are your Connections hints for today:

  • Yellow: Meat wrapped in a handy shape.
  • Green: To smack something.
  • Blue: You look at the internet with these.
  • Purple: All of the words here have the names of cheap alcohols hidden within them.
  • Extra hint 1: Brat does not refer to an annoying or spoiled person here.
  • Extra hint 2: Pepperoni and Rosebud belong in the same group.

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

  • Yellow: Brat
  • Green: Bop
  • Blue: Edge
  • Purple: Contrabass
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: Frankfurter
  • Green: Strike
  • Blue: Web Browsers
  • Purple: Ending With Beer Brands

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, 17th January:

  • Yellow: Frankfurter (Banger, Brat, Link, Sausage)
  • Green: Strike (Bop, Hit, Knock, Tap)
  • Blue: Web Browsers (Chrome, Edge, Opera, Safari)
  • Purple: Ending With Beer Brands (Autoharp, Contrabass, Pepperoni, Rosebud)
A screenshot of Connections answers for January 17, 2025.
Here are your Connections answers for January 17. | Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT

I love me a good sausage, but I admit that when I think of the words "Banger," "Brat," and "Link," my mind does not instantly go to meat products. So It took me a few moments to determine the Yellow group, but I got there in the end.

The Green group was significantly easier, and the Blue group was a snap. Something about having to switch between different web browsers on the regular for this job in order to check SEO results just makes me instantly recognise the Connection between words like "Edge" and "Opera."

That Purple group, though... I'm no longer much of a drinker, nor was I ever a tremendous afficionado of beer to begin with. So I was completley lost there for ages. Hopefully the hint I've provided above puts you on the right track - but this one's just hard, especially if you're not a fan of the less-than-high-calibur beers on display here.

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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