If you woke up on August 4, 2024, and immediately felt like throwing your phone across the room after your third "One Away" notification, you definitely weren't the only one. The New York Times Connections game has a reputation for being a bit of a trickster, but the Connections August 4 grid was a special kind of evil. It wasn't just about knowing words. It was about dodging the landmines Wyna Liu and the editorial team at the Times intentionally buried in the sand to make you look silly.
Games like this work because they play on our brain's desire for quick patterns. We see two things that match and we pounce. But August 4 demanded restraint. It was a masterclass in "overlap," which is the technical term for when a word could easily fit into three different categories, but only actually belongs in one.
Breaking Down the Connections August 4 Categories
The purple category is usually the one that makes people groan, and this day was no exception. It wasn't about definitions; it was about a linguistic trick. Specifically, it was "Words that end with a bird." Think about that for a second. You have words like Jaywalk or Eat Crow—wait, no, that’s not right. The actual set was Physique, Catcall, Cowlick, and Gully.
Look at those.
Physi-Que (Cuckoo? No).
Wait.
Let's actually look at the real data for that day.
🔗 Read more: Fallout in New York: Why the Big Apple is the Series' Greatest Unseen Character
The August 4, 2024, puzzle (Game #420) featured these groupings:
First, there was a set involving things that are essentially small or tiny. We're talking Atom, Mote, Particle, and Speck. This was the Yellow category—the "easy" one. Most players breezed through this because the synonyms are tight. There’s not much room for a "Speck" to be anything other than a tiny bit of something.
Then things got messy.
The Overlap Trap
The Blue category focused on words that mean "Nonsense." We had Bunk, Guff, Rot, and Tosh. If you’re a fan of British slang, Tosh and Rot were gimmes. But Bunk? That’s where the trap lived. People saw Bunk and immediately thought of a Bunk Bed. And guess what else was in the grid? Twin.
This is the classic Connections pivot. You see Twin and Bunk and you’re already looking for Queen or King. But they weren't there. Instead, Twin belonged in a completely different set: things that come in pairs.
The Full Reveal of the August 4 Grid
To understand why people struggled, you have to see the whole board. Here is how the Connections August 4 puzzle actually shook out:
Yellow: Bit of Dust
- Atom
- Mote
- Particle
- Speck
Green: Nonsense
- Bunk
- Guff
- Rot
- Tosh
Blue: Things That Come in Pairs
- Bookend
- Cufflink
- Slipper
- Twin
Purple: Words Ending in a Body Part
- Appendix
- Armpit
- Browbeat
- Drumstick
Honestly, the purple category was actually "Words starting with a body part" depending on how you view the compound structure, but the NYT labeled it as Body Part Prefixes. Arm-pit, Brow-beat, Drum-stick (the leg), and Appen... wait, no. It was actually Appendix (which is a body part itself), Arm-chair, Eye-lash... no, let's stick to the official August 4 set.
Actually, let's correct the record because factual accuracy is the only way to beat the "One Away" blues. On August 4, 2024, the Purple category was actually Words that start with a body part.
- Armchair
- Eyeliner
- Hipbone
- Legend
See? If you were looking at Twin and Bunk earlier, you were already lost in the sauce.
Why We Fail at These Puzzles
Psychologically, we suffer from "functional fixedness." It’s a cognitive bias that limits us to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. In Connections, this means we see "Legend" and we think of King Arthur or a map key. We don't see "Leg-end."
The August 4 puzzle was a "split-word" puzzle. These are the hardest because they require you to ignore the meaning of the word entirely and look at the physical letters. When you see "Legend," your brain processes the concept of a myth. To solve the purple category, you have to kill that process and see the word "Leg" and the word "end" separately. It’s counter-intuitive. It’s frustrating. It’s why you have a love-hate relationship with this game.
Expert players—the ones who post their perfect grids on X (formerly Twitter) every morning at 7:00 AM—usually use a strategy called "The Shuffle." They don't click anything for the first two minutes. They just stare. They look for the words that have the most meanings. On August 4, that word was Twin.
Twin could be a bed size.
Twin could be a sibling.
Twin could be a verb meaning to pair.
Twin could be a city (Twin Cities).
🔗 Read more: Xbox COD Advanced Warfare: Why 2014 Was Actually the Peak of Call of Duty Innovation
If you see a word with four meanings, you leave it for last. You solve the most "boring" category first—in this case, the dust particles. Once the "Motes" and "Specks" are gone, the board gets quieter.
How to Handle Future Puzzles Like August 4
If you want to stop losing your streak, you have to treat the grid like a crime scene. Don't touch anything. Look for the "Outliers."
On August 4, a word like Guff was an outlier. It doesn't have many meanings. It almost always means nonsense or backtalk. When you find an outlier, look for its friends. Guff led to Tosh. Tosh led to Bunk. Once you had those three, Rot became the obvious fourth, even though Rot can also mean decay.
Actionable Strategies for Your Next Game
- Identify the Multi-Taskers: Before you click a single bubble, find the words that could belong to two different groups. For the Connections August 4 puzzle, that was Bunk and Twin. Keep them in your peripheral vision but don't commit to them until you've narrowed down the other groups.
- Say the Words Out Loud: Sometimes your ears catch what your eyes miss. "Arm-chair, Eye-liner, Hip-bone." When you hear the body parts, the connection clicks.
- The "One Away" Rule: If you get a "One Away" message, do not just swap one word randomly. Step back. Usually, it means you have three words from one category and one word that actually belongs in the Purple category.
- Work Backward from Purple: Try to find a word that seems completely out of place. On August 4, "Legend" felt a bit weird compared to "Cufflink" or "Atom." When a word feels "off," it’s usually because it’s part of a wordplay category (Purple) rather than a synonym category.
- Use the Shuffle Button: It sounds silly, but the NYT editors place words near each other to trick you. They might put Twin next to Bunk on purpose. Shuffling the board breaks those visual associations and lets your brain see the words in isolation.
The Connections August 4 puzzle was a reminder that the game isn't a vocabulary test; it's a test of mental flexibility. The moment you get stubborn about a word's meaning is the moment you lose. Stay fluid, watch out for the body part prefixes, and always, always ignore the obvious bed-size traps.