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NYT Connections hints and answers, Sunday Feb 9

Need some Connections hints for today? Read our guide for help with Connections #608.

An abstract image with an altered Connections logo in the centre, surrounded by circles connected by webbed lines.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT
Marloes Valentina Stella avatar
Guide by Marloes Valentina Stella Contributor
Published on

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today's? Check out the Connections hint for Wednesday 12th February!

Need a hint for today's Connections on Sunday, 9th February? The daily Connections puzzles are a treasure, but they can also turn into a source of frustration. If you're feeling a bit too puzzled for your liking, don't give up - this Connections guide can help you out.

We'll gladly help you on your way to victory with a few hints or spoilers, whichever you prefer. If you're interested, we'll also explain the full puzzle solution at the end of this guide.

In this guide:

Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

Super Bowl Party Person
Jumbo Tron Alien Monster
Dune Spoon Giant Character
Individual Pot Avatar Ladle

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 9th February

Here are your Connections hints for today:

  • Yellow: There are no small words in this group.
  • Green: These words are food-related.
  • Blue: They're all human.
  • Purple: Think about movies.
  • Extra hint 1: 'Character' and 'avatar' are in separate groups.
  • Extra hint 2: One of the categories is about science fiction.

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

  • Yellow: Super
  • Green: Pot
  • Blue: Character
  • Purple: Dune
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: Massive
  • Green: Used When Serving Soup
  • Blue: Somebody
  • Purple: Sci-Fi Franchises

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, 9th February:

  • Yellow: Massive (Giant, Jumbo, Monster, Super)
  • Green: Used When Serving Soup (Bowl, Ladle, Pot, Spoon)
  • Blue: Somebody (Character, Individual, Party, Person)
  • Purple: Sci-Fi Franchises (Alien, Avatar, Dune, Tron)
A screenshot of the Connections solution on February 9, 2025.
Here are the February 9 Connections answers. | Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/NYT

As a gamer, it's all too easy to make a false match between 'character' and 'avatar'. Although I realised it wasn't about games when I saw 'individual' and 'person', I still wasn't sure whether to pick avatar or party as the fourth member. You really need to solve today's purple category before you can form the blue one with certainty.

Luckily, I'm familiar with all four sci-fi franchises in this Connections puzzle, so this wasn't difficult for me. I'm guessing most players are also familiar with Dune by now (how can you not be?) but perhaps Alien, and especially Tron, are a bit less famous. There may be some risk of mismatching Tron (as an instrument, or a word that perhaps 'sounds' big) with another category if you aren't.

As is often the case, the yellow category contains words with a similar meaning, making it fairly easy. Green requires more association skills, as the words don't mean the same but are used for the same purpose (eating soup, in this case). Both are great examples of the logic behind the easier Connections categories.

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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