How do you play Word Groups?
The board holds sixteen words, and they belong to four groups of four, such as trees, card games or words that come before “cake”. Tap four words you think belong together and press Submit. A right group locks in at the top with its name; a wrong guess costs one of your 4 mistakes. If three of your four belong to the same group, you are told you are one away.
Shuffle moves the words around, which often shows a group you couldn't see; Deselect clears your picks. Trying the same four twice doesn't cost a mistake.
How do you solve Word Groups?
- Look for the tricky group first. One group in each puzzle is usually wordplay: words that come before or after the same word, or that hide something. Finding it early removes the words that mislead.
- Watch for words with two meanings. A word that seems to fit two groups belongs to only one; check which group still has four members without it.
- Use “one away”. Swap one word at a time, starting with the one you were least sure of.
- Save the last group. With twelve words placed, the last four are a group by elimination.
How is your Word Groups result calculated?
Your result is how many groups you found, out of four, with your mistakes and time beside it. If the 4mistakes run out, the game ends and every group is shown, so you can see what you missed.
How are the puzzles made?
There are 20 puzzles, all written for this site. Each group lists not only its four words but everything else that fits its name, and the site's tests check every board against those lists: no word on a board fits any group but its own. A puzzle may mislead you, with the Moon and the Sun beside the planets, but it never has two right answers. Within a puzzle, groups run from the most direct to the trickiest.
Is this the same as Connections?
It is the same kind of puzzle as Connections, which The New York Times launched in 2023. The puzzles here are this site's own, and you can play as many as you like. For another quick word game, try the Word Guess Game or the Mini Crossword.