Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #556 on December 18, a little harder than yesterday's puzzle, this puzzle from Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 3.3 out of 5.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. And if the hints are not enough for you, see the four answers below, along with the category name and related words.

In addition, for those of you reading this in another time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #555.

There are spoilers for connection 556. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read on.

Or 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.

Today's connection words are: Tackle, Teapot, Hold, Onion, Short, Field, Stout, Hedge, Handle, Sour, Trade, Capitol, Bitter, Chrome, Manage, Bock

If you need tips for solving the groupings, here are each of the topics in order of difficulty:

If you read these tips, you should at least be able to find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further.

Here's a bigger tip: Grab a beer deal on the stock market and go out on the dome.

Now for the answer to today's Round 556 connection.

Drum roll please.

It is interesting to note that so far this week we are stuck on difficulty 3. It is rare to have a week with puzzles of similar difficulty.

For me, I saw the bock and learned that there are beer groupings in this puzzle. Stouts and sours are more obvious. American breweries are so enamored with bitter IPAs at all levels that they tend to forget about English-style bitter beers.

Going with the flow, I saw handle and manage; Field and Tackle fit here, but they feel like afterthoughts rather than direct synonyms, but they also make sense as a yellow group compared to the other three categories.

From there, I was looking at hedging and thinking about stocks to hold, short, or trade.

We wrapped it in a dome that included two architectural domes (Capital and Onion), Scandal (Teapot), and Nickname or Cold War era operations run by the US Air Force (Chrome Dome).

Read this late in the day. This is the Connections solution to game #555, which according to the Connections Companion had a difficulty score of 3.2 out of 5.

It felt tricky today, but manageable.

This grid of connections suggests a grouping of inner body parts. It also hints at modeling with wax and clay, as well as tissues and crafts. Therefore, these are groupings to avoid.

I looked at clay, hard, and grass and chose purple first. I knew these were tennis courts. I chose carpet because nothing else seemed to fit, but a little research revealed that carpet is prohibited as a tennis playing surface. It is truly purple.

I got stuck on tissue as an organic term before I got to tissue paper (staring at the Christmas presents I had to wrap). This solved the puzzle and allowed me to look at wax paper, grid paper, and drawing paper.

What I didn't mention above is that I had the grit, the heart, the guts, and the drive, so I got a number of strikes in the early days of trying to put the yellow together. Strike one. Somehow, I literally couldn't see the word pluck and replaced drive with hard (why?). Strike two; I left this group and found a tennis court. Here, pluck finally emerged from the ether and I salvaged this run.

The description of a road or street left; artery, avenue, drag, drive.