Looking for answers to today's Connections? The Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 3.2 out of 5.

We update our Connections hints and tips daily. And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four solutions along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle 501.

There are spoilers for connection #502. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read on.

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

These hints should at least give you an idea of how to find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you just want the answer, scroll down further.

There is a bigger clue: join the dance, add dots, respond with an emoji to the text, and get panned.

Now, what's the answer to today's game #502, Connection?

Drum roll please.

I went down the line today, but I didn't mean to.

I saw the tittle and period, but somehow skipped over the exclamation point and question mark and grabbed the dot and point instead.

Rave, ball, and hop jumped out at me as a dance. At first I wasn't sure about the formal, but it didn't apply to anything else, so it became the green category.

I am one of those “heathen” androids, so there was no connection to the iPhone. To me, these were merely responses to exclamation points, hearts, question marks, and thumbs-up emojis. At least I use emojis in Slack for this job.

“Bread” is a great purple category. The purple grouping should be clever; all four are variations on the word “bread. Liked. Bad rating, camera movement, cookware, satyrs.

Are you reading this in a slow time zone? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty rating was 3.5 out of 5.

The 500th puzzle was cute and clever; the 501st? It was boring.

I recognized the purple categories adieu, belle, and tan right away, but I just couldn't remember the other French words. So I moved on.

The first grouping I completed was yellow because I put together SLATE, PROGRAM, and SCHEDULE before I found BILL.

The airplane and crane were clues to the folding idea of blue. The fan was easy, and it took me a while to remember the fortune. Are the kids still making fortunes? I hope so.

I also looked at the newspaper clues, and news, cooking, and games came to mind quickly, but audio had been wary until this point. audio is not a false homonym in French, I think, but pain is.

I had completely forgotten that pain is the French word for bread.

Anyway, the French words were adieu, bell, pain, and temps (meaning weather, but I think it has other meanings too).

Today's was one of those puzzles that always feels one off from the correct answer. So.