NYT Connections today hints and answers — Tuesday, August 20 (#436)

Looking for today’s Connections answers? The Connections answers on August 20 for puzzle #436 takes a dive in difficulty compared to yesterday’s answers, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle’s difficulty at 2.2 out of 5.

Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today’s answers. And if the hints aren’t enough, you’ll find all 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we’re including a reflection on yesterday’s puzzle, #435, in case you’re reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #436. Only read on if you want to know today’s Connections answers.  

Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

Today’s Connections answer — hints to help you solve it

Unlike our guide to today’s Wordle answer, where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category’s difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you’ve made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.

If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:

• 🟨 Yellow: Rush of wind
• 🟩 Green: Rotate
• 🟦 Blue: Zodiac symbols
• 🟪 Purple: Dr. Seuss title figures

These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today’s Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.

Here’s a larger hint: Today is a gust of wind on a fall day as you spin around to take in the leaves and the stars later in the day. After that cozy up to a good book, perhaps something Seussian. I am ready for fall, if you couldn’t tell.

These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today’s Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further. Here’s a larger hint: Don’t tie yourself in knots over today’s puzzle. Instead, put on some tunes, get some snacks, and throw on one of the movies you loved to watch growing up.

So, what are today’s Connections answers for game #436?

Drumroll, please…

• 🟨 Rush of wind: Blow, draft, gust, puff
• 🟩 Rotate: Crank, reel, turn wind
• 🟦 Zodiac symbols: Bull, crab, lion, ram
• 🟪 Dr. Seuss title figures: Cat, Grinch, Pop, Turtle

Allegedly, today’s grid is easier than Monday’s puzzle. Not for me.

I won’t say how long I spent sussing out the blue and purple categories because I don’t actually know but I did have to take a break and come back to it.

I started the day with green snagging crank, reel, turn and wind. 

I was already thinking about yellow and so blow, draft, gust and puff fell soon after I put in the green words.

I took some strikes here as I could not see the blue or purple category for the life of me. 

Usually, I am able to make some kind of mental connection but the brain was not working today. The only reason I got the blue category was wild guessing after nearly striking out. Should I have known bull, crab, lion and ram are zodiac symbols, yes, but not today.

It’s too bad because purple is fun with Dr. Seuss title figures in Cat (in the hat), (How the) Grinch (Stole Christmas), (Hop on) Pop, and (Yertle the) Turtle (and other stories). 

It goes like that sometimes.

Yesterday’s Connections answers

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #435, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

Alyssa was happy to have an easier time on Monday’s puzzle compared to Sunday. The yellow category came first without too much of a sweat. Blues is hard to mistake for anything other than the music genre, and once she started trying to sniff out other genres, County, Folk, and Rock quickly popped out. 

She went to a family BBQ yesterday and must have still had hotdogs and hamburgers on the brain, because green came next with Brat, Bun, Mustard, and Sauerkraut. 

She fumbled around for a bit after that but managed to stumble into being one wrong answer away from correctly guessing another category. She had heard of Mountain and Warrior poses in yoga before, and she vaguely remember Chair from a yoga class a friend dragged me to years ago. But she didn’t realize Tree was also one; the more ya know!

The purple category became a rote fill after that. She says she really should have been able to guess the connection given that yesterday’s same category was tied to another animated movie, Snow White, but that still wasn’t enough to clue her in.