NYT Connections Hints Today (#981)—Answers for Monday, February 16

It’s time for a whole new week, and that means seven fresh NYT Connections challenges are waiting to be dominated. Hopefully, you can start as you mean to go on with a big win from today’s NYT Connections puzzle. That’s why I’m here, actually! I’m here to bring you the best NYT Connections hints and solutions for this challenge.

If you want the fastest and clearest tips for today’s NYT Connections puzzle, just read on.

How to Play NYT Connections

In June 2023, NYT Connections emerged as yet another game in the ever-growing New York Times lineup. This title soared immediately, and it’s easy to see why. As a free-to-play, accessible New York Times game, NYT Connections is available to users worldwide and can be played on either desktop devices or via a mobile app.

But how do you play NYT Connections?

The NYT team will provide you with a grid of 16 words once a day. The only task left up to you is to sort those words into four groups of four by finding their commonalities. Every NYT Connections puzzle has just one solution, and some words can have double meanings, so it can sometimes be tricky to figure out the answers.

It’s also important to stress that the words are color-coded: yellow, blue, green, and purple. That’s in order of difficulty, from least to most.

What’s critical here is that you get four guesses every day, and if you use those, your NYT Connections answers for today will be out of reach, as it’ll be game over.

Today’s NYT Connections Hints (February 16)

Here are the words from today’s NYT Connections puzzle:

• BUCK
• SCREAM
• DO
• LAUGH
• FAWN
• DOE
• FLIGHT
• SQUAWK
• HOOT
• FIGHT
• RIOT
• DOUGH
• FREEZE
• CACKLE
• DOH
• CLUCK

And here are the hints I can offer for today’s NYT Connections:

• Yellow – Ways to describe something hilarious
• Green – Sounds the same but spelled differently
• Blue – What noises a chicken might make
• Purple – How you respond to stress

Here’s the final warning before we get to the NYT Connections answers for today, February 16:

Are you sure you want to scroll further?

Very well!

NYT Connections Answers Explained for Today, February 16 (#981)

If you want to jump straight to the answers for today’s NYT Connections puzzle, I’ve got you covered:

• Yellow – HOOT, LAUGH, RIOT, SCREAM
• Green – DO, DOE, DOH, DOUGH
• Blue – BUCK, CACKLE, CLUCK, SQUAWK
• Purple – FAWN, FIGHT, FLIGHT, FREEZE

When Does NYT Connections Reset?

That’s today’s puzzle, but if you want the next one, the game resets daily at midnight local time (that’s your local time). You’ll have 24 hours to complete the puzzle when midnight ticks over in your timezone.

How did you do? Did you get a perfect run? Let me know what your streak looks like on the Insider Gaming Discord server