For NYT ‘Connections’ Today — Hints and Answers for Sunday, June 9, the correct entry is Sunday, June 9, 2024, puzzle #364: the groups are FEELING SOME TYPE OF WAY, THROW HERE AND THERE, THINGS WITH LAYERS, and ______ POTATO. Progressive hints appear first, followed by the complete answers and explanations.
The date needs a year because the original title omitted one. The Sunday entry was June 9, 2024—not June 9, 2026, which fell on a Tuesday.
Key takeaways
- Sunday, June 9, 2024, was NYT Connections puzzle #364; June 9, 2026 was a Tuesday and is not the entry covered here.
- The four categories were FEELING SOME TYPE OF WAY, THROW HERE AND THERE, THINGS WITH LAYERS, and ______ POTATO.
- PEPPER belongs with SCATTER, SPRINKLE, and STREW as a verb meaning to distribute or spread something around.
- CAKE, EARTH, ONION, and PLYWOOD form the literal layers group.
- The main trap combines taste-related words such as BITTER, SALTY, PEPPER, HOT, and SWEET even though those words belong to different intended groups.
NYT ‘Connections’ Today — Hints and Answers for Sunday, June 9
For NYT ‘Connections’ Today — Hints and Answers for Sunday, June 9, the correct entry is Sunday, June 9, 2024, puzzle #364: the groups are FEELING SOME TYPE OF WAY, THROW HERE AND THERE, THINGS WITH LAYERS, and ______ POTATO. Progressive hints appear first, followed by the complete answers and explanations.
The date needs a year because the original title omitted one. The Sunday entry was June 9, 2024—not June 9, 2026, which fell on a Tuesday. The contemporary answer guide identifies the 2024 puzzle as Connections puzzle #364.
#1 Best Overall
Hints for Connections puzzle #364
Stop here if you want to solve the board yourself. These hints move from broad to specific without giving away the four word groups immediately.
- One group describes someone who is unhappy, irritated, resentful, or emotionally bothered.
- One group consists of words for tossing, spreading, or putting things down over an area in a somewhat haphazard way.
- One group contains objects or substances with multiple layers that may not all be obvious at first glance.
- The final group can be completed with the same word: POTATO.
Spoiler: What are the Connections answers for June 9, 2024?
Warning: the complete solution is below. The four answers for NYT Connections puzzle #364 are:
| Color | Category | Four words | Connection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | FEELING SOME TYPE OF WAY | BITTER, SALTY, SORE, UPSET | Words that can describe emotional displeasure or unhappiness |
| Green | THROW HERE AND THERE | PEPPER, SCATTER, SPRINKLE, STREW | Verbs meaning to spread or distribute things around |
| Blue | THINGS WITH LAYERS | CAKE, EARTH, ONION, PLYWOOD | Things made up of, or containing, layers |
| Purple | ______ POTATO | BAKED, COUCH, HOT, SWEET | Words that form familiar phrases with POTATO |
The published answer list for June 9, 2024 confirms these categories and all 16 entries.
Why do BITTER, SALTY, SORE, and UPSET belong together?
BITTER, SALTY, SORE, and UPSET can all describe a person who is unhappy, annoyed, resentful, or emotionally bothered. “Feeling some type of way” is deliberately broad and colloquial, so the category covers several shades of displeasure rather than one precise emotion.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteThe words can also tempt solvers toward a food-related interpretation. BITTER and SALTY are tastes, while SORE and UPSET are more obviously emotional or physical descriptions. The intended connection is the figurative description of a person’s mood.
How do PEPPER, SCATTER, SPRINKLE, and STREW mean “throw here and there”?
PEPPER, SCATTER, SPRINKLE, and STREW are all verbs for distributing something across an area. In this puzzle, PEPPER is used as a verb—as in “pepper the field with flowers”—rather than as the seasoning found in a kitchen.
Strew may be the least familiar word in the set. To strew something means to spread or scatter items over a surface or area. That grammatical shift is important because PEPPER otherwise looks like it belongs with HOT, SWEET, SALTY, or other food-associated words.
What things have layers in the blue group?
CAKE, EARTH, ONION, and PLYWOOD are all things with layers. Cake can contain stacked layers, Earth has geological layers, an onion consists of overlapping layers, and plywood is manufactured from bonded layers, or plies, of wood.
Quick wins for a faster PC:
Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →ONION is an especially recognizable entry because layered onions are a familiar example in everyday language. PLYWOOD is the vocabulary test: the word refers to a material built from multiple wood layers rather than a single solid piece.
What phrases can be made with POTATO?
The purple group is a phrase-completion category. Adding POTATO produces four familiar expressions:
| Board word | Completed phrase | Meaning or use |
|---|---|---|
| BAKED | BAKED POTATO | A potato cooked in its skin, typically in an oven or other heated appliance |
| COUCH | COUCH POTATO | A person who spends a great deal of time sitting and watching television or otherwise being inactive |
| HOT | HOT POTATO | A literal hot potato or a difficult issue passed from one person or group to another |
| SWEET | SWEET POTATO | A distinct root vegetable commonly used in sweet and savory dishes |
The category is based on familiar compounds and phrases, not on a single shared meaning. That is why BAKED, COUCH, HOT, and SWEET can sit together even though the completed expressions describe different things.
What was the main red herring in the June 9 Connections puzzle?
The principal misdirection was a possible taste or food grouping involving BITTER, SALTY, PEPPER, HOT, and SWEET. Several of those words appear to describe flavors, but the board uses them in different ways: BITTER and SALTY join the emotional category, PEPPER is a distribution verb, and HOT and SWEET complete phrases with POTATO.
Recommended Free Tools
A useful solving habit is to test a word’s grammatical role and its likely phrase partners before committing to a theme. PEPPER as a verb breaks the apparent seasoning group, while HOT and SWEET become much stronger once POTATO is supplied.
Which group is easiest, and which is trickiest?
The official New York Times Help Center describes the color system as a difficulty structure: Yellow is the easiest group and Purple is the trickiest. The colors are useful guidance, but perceived difficulty can vary because the same word may seem to fit several categories.
| Group | What makes it comparatively clear or difficult | Useful solving test |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | “Feeling some type of way” is interpretive and covers several kinds of displeasure. | Ask whether each word can describe an unhappy or resentful person. |
| Green | Three words clearly suggest spreading; PEPPER is disguised as a food word. | Read PEPPER as a verb and substitute “spread” or “scatter.” |
| Blue | The layer connection is concrete, but PLYWOOD may be less familiar. | Look for physical structures made of stacked or bonded layers. |
| Purple | The group depends on recognizing a phrase completion rather than a shared definition. | Place POTATO after each candidate and check whether the result is familiar. |
The New York Times describes Connections as a game in which players receive 16 words and must find four groups of four. The official Connections rules and help page also explains that overlapping possible relationships are part of the intended challenge.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What is the best solving order for this board?
A practical route is to solve the strongest phrase and structure clues first, then use the remaining words to expose the more ambiguous groups.
Best Value
- Start with POTATO. BAKED, COUCH, HOT, and SWEET form four familiar phrases and remove the most distracting flavor words.
- Find the layers. CAKE, EARTH, ONION, and PLYWOOD share a literal structural property.
- Reinterpret PEPPER. Treat PEPPER as a verb meaning to distribute, then pair it with SCATTER, SPRINKLE, and STREW.
- Finish with the emotional descriptors. BITTER, SALTY, SORE, and UPSET are the remaining words and describe someone feeling unhappy or bothered.
This order is not a claim about every player’s experience; it is a way to reduce the board’s strongest ambiguity. The taste-related decoys become easier to separate once the phrase-completion group is identified.
Want more Connections puzzles?
Readers who enjoy the category-matching format can try The New York Times Connections puzzle book, an official print collection by The New York Times Games and Wyna Liu. The publisher describes the book as containing more than 100 Connections puzzles. The book is a related offline collection, not a confirmed archive of the June 9, 2024 daily puzzle.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the NYT Connections answer for Sunday, June 9?
The NYT Connections puzzle for Sunday, June 9, 2024, was puzzle #364. The four categories were FEELING SOME TYPE OF WAY, THROW HERE AND THERE, THINGS WITH LAYERS, and ______ POTATO.
Why is PEPPER in the June 9 Connections answers?
The THROW HERE AND THERE group was PEPPER, SCATTER, SPRINKLE, and STREW. In this group, PEPPER functions as a verb meaning to distribute or spread something around.
What were the layered things in Connections #364?
The THINGS WITH LAYERS group was CAKE, EARTH, ONION, and PLYWOOD. Cake, Earth, and onion have recognizable layers, while plywood is made from bonded wood plies.
What words go with POTATO in the June 9 Connections puzzle?
The purple group was BAKED, COUCH, HOT, and SWEET, because each forms a familiar phrase with POTATO: baked potato, couch potato, hot potato, and sweet potato.
The Bottom Line
The June 9, 2024 NYT Connections answers were BITTER, SALTY, SORE, UPSET; PEPPER, SCATTER, SPRINKLE, STREW; CAKE, EARTH, ONION, PLYWOOD; and BAKED, COUCH, HOT, SWEET. The key traps were reading PEPPER as a seasoning and grouping all the taste-related words together.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
