NYT Connections hints and answers, Sunday Feb 16

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's? Check out the Connections hint for Tuesday 29th April!

Need a hint for today's Connections on Sunday, 16th February? Some Connections themes are just hard to find, either because they're vague, the words have a secondary meaning, they're related to an unfamiliar topic, or they're in the realm of homophones and homonyms.

Do not let that deter you though; with the help of our hints, spoilers, and gentle nudges below, we'll help you find all four themes in today's Connections puzzle.

In this guide:

• How to play Connections
• Connections hint for Sunday 16th February
• 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 Sunday 16th February

Here are your Connections hints for today:

• Yellow: When you 'lift the veil' just a little bit...
• Green: You can put two and two together in this group.
• Blue: They're basically talking plushies.
• Purple: They're a man's best friend, but they lack something.
• Extra hint 1: When trying to solve the blue group, think of television shows.
• Extra hint 2: Every group except blue has a word starting with 's'.

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

• Yellow:Hint
• Green:Fit
• Blue:Oscar
• Purple:Set

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: Glimmer
• Green: Correspond Well With
• Blue: Famous Puppets
• Purple: Dog Breeds Minus “Er” Sound

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 Sunday, 16th February:

• Yellow: Glimmer (Hint, Suggestion, Touch, Trace)
• Green: Correspond Well With (Complement, Fit, Match, Suit)
• Blue: Famous Puppets (Lamb Chop, Oscar, Punch, Triumph)
• Purple: Dog Breeds Minus “Er” Sound (Box, Point, Retrieve, Set)

Let's see if any of today's Connections words complement each other... If they're a good fit, perhaps they'll suit the green category. No indeed, I didn't have much trouble matching the green group today, as I'm sure is the case for most players who've made a lot of word-connections before. I didn't need a hint or suggestion for the yellow category either.

And that's when the trouble started, as I just couldn't make sense of the blue and purple words at first. Neither puppets nor dog breeds are my forte, and even though I've heard of a Boxer and a Golden Retriever before, it took me a while to spot them, being chopped and all. Speaking of chops, that lamb chop left me utterly confused - I kept trying to find hidden and secondary meanings, but couldn't come up with anything. Turns out it's a puppet. Never in a million years would I have guessed that.

Oh well, some days the Connections puzzle is easy, some days it's brutal. I did spot the dog breeds eventually (except 'Setter'), and some guesswork ultimately brought the solution. But it was tough!

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!