rewrite this title NYT Connections January 17: Get the Hints and Final Answer

Leave it to The New York Times to have an addicting yet educational word game to crack! Since “Connections” is one of the publication’s most popular games, the answer for today, January 17, 2025, was a tough one to solve.

Luckily, we’ve got the hints and the final answer to today’s puzzle.

How to Play ‘Connections’

“Connections” begins with a set of 16 words in a grid, and players have to separate the words into four related groups. The difficulty of each category is marked in the colors yellow, green, blue and purple. Yellow is the easier one, while purple is considered the most difficult.

After a player selects each group’s four words, they click “submit,” which should become the category’s color if it’s correct.

‘Connections’ January 17 Hints

Here are our hints for Friday’s “Connections” answer:

Types of sausages, often associated with different cuisines and countries.
Verbs that describe a variety of ways to make contact with an object, often with force.
Popular web browsers used for navigating the internet.
These words end with names that might also be found on the label of a drink—a cold one—you’d enjoy at a bar.

“Connections” editor Wyna Liu is familiar with the frustration that players have when they can’t solve a game. While speaking with Slate in July 2024, Liu described the process behind developing each game.

“The process is I have a notebook where I keep down category ideas. And when I sit down to make boards, I’ll take one of those ideas, I’ll take those words, and then I’ll start spinning off of them,” Liu said. “And then, the boards will be built from that, and sometimes it goes in surprising directions. I feel like that’s sort of one of the most joyful things about making games. I don’t know what the categories are gonna be. I start with like a seed. And then I’m just like, ‘Oh, what does this word do?,’ and then maybe like a dozen categories of possibilities and then you kind of see if any of those words are playing off each other, and the brain builds from that.”

What Is the ‘Connections’ January 17 Answer?

The answer to today’s “Connections” game is:

Frankfurter: BANGER, BRAT, LINK, SAUSAGE
Strike: BOP, HIT, KNOCK, TAP
Web Browsers: CHROME, EDGE, OPERA, SAFARI
Ending with Beer Brands: AUTOHARP, CONTRABASS, PEPPERONI, ROSEBUD