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Looking for the NYT Connections answers from Monday, December 29, 2025? This was puzzle #932. The board included words such as GENE, OPAL, SWIMMING, COURSE, TIDE, TISSUE, INFINITY, ATHLETICS, OUTIE, DIRECTION, EQUESTRIAN, CELL, PROTEIN, MINNIE, TREND, and TRIATHLON.
Use the hints below before revealing the complete groups. The full answers appear farther down the page, so stop when you have enough help.
Spoiler warning
The sections labeled “Full answers” reveal the complete solution for NYT Connections puzzle #932. If you are still solving, begin with the word list and category hints, then reveal the answers only when you are ready.
Today’s Connections words
These were the 16 entries in the Monday, December 29, 2025 grid:
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- GENE
- OPAL
- SWIMMING
- COURSE
- TIDE
- TISSUE
- INFINITY
- ATHLETICS
- OUTIE
- DIRECTION
- EQUESTRIAN
- CELL
- PROTEIN
- MINNIE
- TREND
- TRIATHLON
Connections asks players to divide 16 words into four groups of four. Each group shares a connection, and the four groups are assigned color-coded difficulty levels, generally from yellow through purple. The puzzle date and game number are also reported by Parade, TechRadar, and Forbes.
Hints for Connections #932
Here are the category clues, arranged from the most approachable to the most specialized:
- Yellow: Like an inclination or the way something is moving.
- Green: Things you might study in science; components of organisms.
- Blue: Categories or disciplines represented at the Summer Olympics.
- Purple: Words that sound like car brands.
One-word nudge for each group
If the category descriptions are not quite enough, these words point toward one answer in each group:
- Yellow: TREND
- Green: PROTEIN
- Blue: EQUESTRIAN
- Purple: MINNIE
One answer from each group
For a smaller spoiler, these are representative answers from the four categories:
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- Yellow: TREND
- Green: CELL
- Blue: SWIMMING
- Purple: MINNIE
Try removing those four words from the board and looking again at the remaining entries before opening the complete solution.
Full answers for NYT Connections #932
Yellow: TENDENCY
COURSE, DIRECTION, TIDE, TREND
These words can all describe a tendency, direction, or movement. A course is a route or path, a direction indicates where something is headed, a tide can describe a prevailing movement, and a trend is a general direction or pattern.
Green: BIOLOGICAL STRUCTURES
CELL, GENE, PROTEIN, TISSUE
These are components or structures associated with living organisms. A cell is a basic unit of life; genes carry hereditary information; proteins perform many structural and functional roles; and tissue is made from groups of cells working together.
Blue: SUMMER OLYMPIC DISCIPLINES
ATHLETICS, EQUESTRIAN, SWIMMING, TRIATHLON
This group refers to Olympic disciplines or broad event categories rather than necessarily to one individual event. For example, athletics includes events such as sprinting and the marathon, while equestrian includes several horse-sport disciplines. Swimming and triathlon are also represented in the Summer Olympic program.
Purple: CAR-BRAND SOUND-ALIKES
INFINITY, MINNIE, OPAL, OUTIE
These words are intended to suggest car brands by sound:
| Grid entry | Car brand |
|---|---|
| INFINITY | Infiniti |
| MINNIE | Mini |
| OPAL | Opel |
| OUTIE | Audi |
“Sound-alikes” is the most accurate description here. The matches rely on approximate pronunciation and brand recognition, not perfect dictionary homophones. In particular, OUTIE is not an exact phonetic match for Audi, which makes the purple group the most specialized connection on this board.
Why this puzzle was tricky
Several entries can create tempting but incorrect patterns. TIDE, GENE, SWIMMING, and INFINITY, for example, may suggest a pool-related connection when viewed together, but they ultimately belong to four separate groups. Connections commonly uses this kind of overlap to make an apparent pattern less useful than the final four-by-four arrangement.
The purple category also requires a shift from meaning to pronunciation. INFINITY, MINNIE, OPAL, and OUTIE do not form an ordinary semantic group; they become a set only when read as approximate versions of Infiniti, Mini, Opel, and Audi.
Want more Connections-style puzzles?
If you enjoy solving these word-grouping puzzles away from a screen, consider an official Connections puzzle book. A print collection can provide additional common-thread puzzles without revealing the answer to this particular daily grid.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the NYT Connections answer for December 29, 2025?
The four groups were TENDENCY: COURSE, DIRECTION, TIDE, TREND; BIOLOGICAL STRUCTURES: CELL, GENE, PROTEIN, TISSUE; SUMMER OLYMPIC DISCIPLINES: ATHLETICS, EQUESTRIAN, SWIMMING, TRIATHLON; and CAR-BRAND SOUND-ALIKES: INFINITY, MINNIE, OPAL, OUTIE.
What game number was the December 29, 2025 Connections puzzle?
The Monday, December 29, 2025 edition was NYT Connections puzzle #932.
Are the purple answers exact homophones of car brands?
Not all of them. They are approximate sound-alikes for Infiniti, Mini, Opel, and Audi. OUTIE and Audi are especially inexact, so “car-brand sound-alikes” is more accurate than “exact homophones.”
The Bottom Line
The December 29, 2025 NYT Connections puzzle (#932) grouped its words into tendencies, biological structures, Summer Olympic disciplines, and approximate car-brand sound-alikes.
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