NYT Connections game #909, dated Saturday, December 6, 2025, groups the 16 tiles into four sets: NORM, MOLLIFY, members of titular animation-franchise groups, and words starting with herpetofauna. Hints come first; the full categories and answers follow below.
Spoiler-light hints for Connections #909
- Yellow: Middling; just okay.
- Green: Calming words; ways to chill out.
- Blue: Singular members of groups featured in animated films.
- Purple: Look at the beginnings of the words; each starts with an animal name.
These clue themes are reported by TechRadar and Forbes.
The 16 tiles
MODERATE · MONITORSHIP · AVERAGE · CAR · NEWTON · INCREDIBLE · MEAN · TEMPER · STANDARD · TOADY · COOL · MINION · SETTLE · ADDERALL · MONSTER · PAR
Full answers for game #909
Spoilers below. Three answer guides—TechRadar, Forbes, and Try Hard Guides—give the same category labels and tile assignments.
#1 Best Overall
Yellow — NORM
AVERAGE, MEAN, PAR, STANDARD
Green — MOLLIFY
COOL, MODERATE, SETTLE, TEMPER
Blue — MEMBER OF A TITULAR GROUP IN AN ANIMATION FRANCHISE
CAR, INCREDIBLE, MINION, MONSTER
Each tile points to a member of the title group in Cars, The Incredibles, Minions, or Monsters, Inc. The connection is to a group in an animated-film franchise, not simply to any animated character.
Purple — STARTING WITH HERPETOFAUNA
ADDERALL, MONITORSHIP, NEWTON, TOADY
The word beginnings are adder, monitor, newt, and toad. Herpetofauna refers to amphibians and reptiles; the full tiles are not animal names.
Rank #2
How Connections works
Connections asks players to sort a bank of 16 words into four related groups of four. It is available through NYT Games on desktop or mobile, according to TechRadar; Forbes describes the groups as color-coded difficulty tiers and notes that guesses are limited.
Quick Recap
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