Today's Connections Hints & Answers For April 18, 2025 (Puzzle #677) -

Words in today’s Connections puzzle seem to thrive from subtraction, creating a theme of categories that are difficult to decipher without the right context. I struggled trying to discover the solution to each topic today, mainly due to how some words tended to blend with multiple meanings. With many words trying to trick you, it can be hard to know what pairings are correct without some helpful hints.

At first glance, today’s puzzles have very few words that go together based on their definitions. The theme of today is taking things away, either through the meaning of a word or removing a part of it to form something new. Just like you connect dots in the Vertex NYT game, you have to find the right patterns first to narrow down every category.

Today’s Connections Category Hints

April 18 #677

Today's Connections Hints & Answers For April 18, 2025 (Puzzle #677) Categories image

One of the ways I solved today’s puzzle was to look for the words that stand out the most first, without pairing together the most similar-looking phrases you see. For example, putting POSSESSION with HAUNTING makes sense, but the theme around subtraction creates very little to pair between the two words. I needed to take my time and look over words multiple times to figure out the right solution.

Due to the difficulty of today’s puzzle, here are some clues that will help you get a head start:

One category is about things you would say to comment on something happening.
One category is about things related to scary films without the first part of their title.
One category is about things you can take away or play.
One category is about things related to spaces you own, reduced from their plural versions.

5 Letter Words Wordle Hasn’t Used Yet (Updated Daily)

Wordle, the popular word-guessing game hosted by The New York Times, has over 1,700 words remaining as possible solutions.

If you want to go all out with some of your clue-searching, you should look at the category names to get some extra help. There are also spoilers for each category if you find yourself needing to solve a single category to finish up.

	INTERJECTIONS
	HORROR MOVIES WITH “THE”
	THINGS YOU CAN PICK
	PERSONAL PROPERTY MINUS “S”

Today’s Connections Answers

April 18 #677

Today's Connections Hints & Answers For April 18, 2025 (Puzzle #677) Answers image

Yellow Answers: Revealed & Explained

INTERJECTIONS
BOY	GOODNESS	MAN	WOW

INTERJECTIONS

BOY

GOODNESS

MAN

WOW

This part of the puzzle was a bit easier for me, because I say MAN as a reaction to anything when talking to my friends. WOW seemed like a natural pairing here, as well as GOODNESS once I understood the gimmick of this category. The only word that didn’t seem obvious here was BOY, until I remembered that expressive phrases were better to use rather than definitions to grasp this category’s context.

Green Answers: Revealed & Explained

HORROR MOVIES WITH “THE”
BIRDS	EXORCIST	HAUNTING	SHINING

HORROR MOVIES WITH “THE”

BIRDS

EXORCIST

HAUNTING

SHINING

This was the first part of the puzzle I solved, as I recognized EXORCIST and SHINING to represent The Excorcist and The Shining movies, respectively. This hinted at the central theme of today’s puzzle, making me check to see if any words were the title of a horror movie with “The” part of its title taken away. This led me to BIRDS and HAUNTING, both films that fit under the right connection.

NYT game Letter Boxed with mobile app avatars jumping around

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The Letter Boxed game for the New York Times mobile app asks you to connect letters to form words while using various strategies to win quickly.

Blue Answers: Revealed & Explained

THINGS YOU CAN PICK
APPLE	BANJO	CARD	NOSE

THINGS YOU CAN PICK

APPLE

BANJO

CARD

NOSE

This was the trickiest part of the puzzle for me, as I didn’t associate several of the right words to work together. After an embarrassing amount of time, I realized that APPLE and CARD both represented items you could take, but it took me longer to associate NOSE in the same group. Once you understand that a pick is what you use to play the BANJO, it puts the other words into the right context for the solution to this puzzle piece.

Purple Answers: Revealed & Explained

PERSONAL PROPERTY MINUS “S”
BELONGING	EFFECT	GOOD	POSSESSION

PERSONAL PROPERTY MINUS “S”

BELONGING

EFFECT

GOOD

POSSESSION

This part of the puzzle can easily fool you since POSSESSION could easily be put into the horror movies category by mistake. What caught my eye with these words was BELONGING and GOOD, which go together when you turn them into nouns rather than their normal definitions. By adding what the puzzle has subtracted, you can find EFFECT and POSSESSION both turn into nouns as well, completing the final set you need to win.