Multiple Meanings For “Sham” Have Got Some NYT Connections Players Stumped Today

Illustration: Kotaku / Vicky Leta

One day left in the weekend, puzzlers—make it count! Maybe with some lighter fare like The Wild Robot? Grab the kids and go, or just take yourself—nothing wrong with a little popcorn and animation to wrap up your weekend!

While you’re waiting for the movie to start, your daily sweet 16 words are back and ready for your best grouping efforts. The popular Connections brainbuster from The New York Times has four groups of words with a shared theme or commonality, but they’re shuffled into random order for you to figure out. Remember to take your time—many words have multiple meanings, so think twice before you click.

Today’s words: PLAY, JUSTICE, THROW, ENERGY, HONOR, PASS, KEEP, SHAM, DISCARD, SHEET, STATE, FULFILL, BLANKET, LABOR, UPHOLD, and DRAW.

Photo: Fox Photos/Getty Images (Getty Images)

Above is your visual hint for today’s yellow group. Maybe it’s right on the money for you? If you’re still scratching your head, well, hate to tell you, but yellow is the easiest group.

Need a verbal clue? Let’s shake on it. That’s a good clue—cross our hearts and hope to die.

Tapping out? Not much in the way of curveballs from the easy yellow group today. If you managed to not overthink it, these four pretty much did the work for you.

Today’s yellow group answer is Make Good on a Promise and its words are FULFILL, HONOR, KEEP, and UPHOLD.

Photo: Daniel Karmann/picture alliance via Getty Images (Getty Images)

There’s your visual hint for today’s blue group. It might be your eureka! moment. (No, sorry, that was not a clue.) Or it might not have helped at all. Hey, we try.

Time for the verbal clue: Go fish. That’s it—that’s your bridge to this group.

No? Frankly we’d be surprised if you got decked by this group.

Today’s blue group answer is Actions in Card Games and its words are DISCARD, DRAW, PASS, and PLAY.

Photo: Andrew Woodley/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images (Getty Images)

We’re going to go out on a limb and say this is a pretty powerful visual clue. Will it get you to the finish line? That’s the catch—you still have to find the right words.

Need the verbal clue too? Maybe you should sleep on it. Or perhaps a little more of a fun activity?

Give up? This group practically made its bed for you to lie in.

Today’s green group answer is Bedding and its words are BLANKET, SHAM, SHEET, and THROW.

Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images (Getty Images)

The purple group is the hardest one, so don’t kick yourself if this visual hint does not immediately take you to the promised land.

Here’s your verbal clue: These all require approval from the Senate.

Crying uncle? Today was one of those days when we nailed the Purple group down first. You might say we governed our clues well today.

Today’s purple group answer is Cabinet Departments and its words are ENERGY, JUSTICE, LABOR, and STATE.

That’s a wrap on this weekend of Connections—let’s do it again next Saturday!