If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission.
Read our editorial policy.

This guide is for a previous day! Looking for today’s? Check out the Connections hint for Wednesday 18th March!

Looking for some Connections hints to help with today’s puzzle on Sunday, 15th March? Is your streak slipping away with every minute you spend scratching your head over this Connections puzzle? You’re not alone! It happens to the best of us.

That’s why we created this Connections Companion! Think of it as your ‘phone a friend’ option. We have both subtle hints and full answers here, so you never have to worry about losing your hard-earned streak again!

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”. These are the kinds of Connections you’ll need to make to solve the puzzle.

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: Today’s Connections words

Below you’ll find various hints for today’s Connections. Each of the below hints will make it progressively easier for you to solve today’s puzzle. First we’ll reveal the words in today’s Connections, followed by our Connections hint for each group. Then we’ll reveal one word inside each group, followed by the groups themselves; and finally, at the bottom of this page, we’ll reveal the answers to today’s Connections puzzle. Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

• MONOPOLIZE
• SPROCKET
• BLOG
• BOGART
• COG
• CORNER
• DOG
• DOZE
• FROG
• GEAR
• HOG
• HORN
• MOTEL
• PINION
• SMOG
• SPORK

Connections hint for Sunday 15th March

Here are your Connections hints for today:

• Yellow hint: Some never learned how to share.
• Green hint: They keep things moving.
• Blue hint: Two parents, one child.
• Purple hint: The end is the most important part.
• Extra hint 1: Some links are more about context than surface meaning.
• Extra hint 2: Every group except purple has at least one word containing the letter ‘O’

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

• Yellow: Monopolize
• Green: Cog
• Blue: Motel
• Purple: Dog

Spoiler warning! Today’s Connections groups are revealed just below!

Connections hints: All of 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: Greedily Control
• Green: Toothed Wheels
• Blue: Portmanteaux
• Purple: Bull___

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!

Connections answer today

Here is the answer to today’s Connections puzzle on Sunday, 15th March:

• Yellow: Greedily Control (Bogart, Corner, Hog, Monopolize)
• Green: Toothed Wheels (Cog, Gear, Pinion, Sprocket)
• Blue: Portmanteaux (Blog, Motel, Smog, Spork)
• Purple: Bull___ (Dog, Doze, Frog, Horn)

That one was a real doozy! If you made it this far, you can relax and bask in the satisfaction of your ever-growing streak. In a rare turn of events, the purple group was not the hardest one for me today! That crown goes to the blue group this time.

‘Portmanteaux’ is not a word you hear in everyday conversation, so you would be forgiven for not knowing what it means. A portmanteau is one word made up of a combination of two words. ‘Spork,’ for example, is a combination of ‘spoon’ and ‘fork,’ while ‘smog’ is a combination of ‘smoke’ and ‘fog.’ If you found yourself stuck on that group, there’s your explanation! You learn something new every day in the Connections puzzle.

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!

Read this next

• NYT Connections hint (Wed, 18 Mar)
• NYT Connections hint (Tue, 17 Mar)
• NYT Connections hint (Mon, 16 Mar)