NYT Connections hints and answers, Tuesday Mar 11

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's? Check out the Connections hint for Sunday 27th April!

Need a hint for today's Connections on Tuesday, 11th March? Some days, the NYT Connections puzzle makes you feel like the smartest person in the world, but other days, it's nothing short of cruel. Don't let one brutal word-guesser get you down!

This guide is here to rescue any befuddled Connections players. Pick a hint or a spoiler, and let's tackle today's challenge.

In this guide:

• How to play Connections
• Connections hint for Tuesday 11th March
• What are today's Connections groups?
• What are today's Connections answers?

Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

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).

Click here to play today's Connections puzzle!

Connections hint for Tuesday 11th March

Here are your Connections hints for today:

• Yellow: This group destroys the status quo.
• Green: What sound do these words make?
• Blue: This group is made from the same resource.
• Purple: Think about music.
• Extra hint 1: Wallet, keys, and phone are in different groups.
• Extra hint 2: One group contains the start of the alphabet.

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

• Yellow:Change
• Green:Bell
• Blue:Wallet
• Purple:King

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: Variation From The Norm
• Green: Things That Ring
• Blue: Things Traditionally Made Of Leather
• Purple: Singer-Songwriter Pianists

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 Tuesday, 11th March:

• Yellow: Variation From The Norm (Alternative, Break, Change, Departure)
• Green: Things That Ring (Alarm, Bell, Intercom, Phone)
• Blue: Things Traditionally Made Of Leather (Football, Moccasins, Saddle, Wallet)
• Purple: Singer-Songwriter Pianists (Keys, King, Legend, Wonder)

I must admit I was almost ready to hand in 'wallet, keys, and phone' today, but alas, no obvious fourth member for my 'common things to take with you when you leave the house' group. I then noticed the similarity between 'alternative' and 'change', which helped me find the yellow group. I returned to 'phone' after, and upon spotting 'alarm', caught on to the 'ringing devices' connection.

The remaining eight words gave me a lot of trouble though, as I didn't think of a potential material/resource connection at all. I started to match 'king, legend, and wonder', which is technically correct, but for all the wrong reasons. Instead of looking for another person, I searched for a miracle or a mythical person.

When that obviously didn't work out, I realised I should try to find another meaning of 'wonder', and suddenly thought of Stevie - hurrah! I'm lucky to know all three other musicians as well, or I might've struggled for much longer. The blue category's theme seems fairly easy in hindsight, but it turned out to be the hardest for me today. Note to self: look for shared resources in future Connections puzzles.

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!