Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #380 on June 25, a little harder than yesterday's answer, this puzzle from the Connections companion has a difficulty rating of 3.2 out of 5.

We update our Connections clues and hints 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 (#379).

There are spoilers for Connections 380 ahead. Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's Connections.

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:

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

Here's a bigger clue: Today's puzzle seems to be about gossip. It may have something to do with bean-counting, which may divide the group. Or there is a silent character that may hide the path to greater fortune. Or Tuesday, lemon.

So what is the answer to today's connection in game #380?

Drum roll, please.

There is a podcast I sometimes listen to called "Normal Gossip," and that may have been what I had in mind when I started today's puzzle. It seemed to me that many of the words were connected to gossip or related to talking about gossip.

Of course, the puzzle came right out of the yellow category featuring "dish," "spill," and "talk"; "tell" seemed too similar to "talk," so I hesitated.

The green category took a little longer to find; "branch" and "fork" caught my eye immediately, but "secret" was incorrect because I was in the middle of a dungeon search. The "part" and "split" came up almost as soon as I stopped playing DnD.

Maybe I'm dumb, but I saw the words in the blue category but did not make a silent association. Instead, I just saw that each word had the letters K and N next to each other. It worked, but not for a puzzle like this.

Purple was then a makeshift filling. I had looked at the formula and the recipe earlier in the day, but I couldn't find a match. So we were looking for other connections that would split these two words. Perhaps it was a good thing I saved for SECRET and TICKET to find success.

I am reading this late in the day. According to the Connections Companion, the Connections solution to game #378, which had a difficulty score of 3 out of 5, is as follows.

Perhaps it was because I had just eaten lunch, but it only took me a few seconds to parse the green category. The word "meat" feels like a red herring to distract from the "main" and "side. Both have multiple meanings, but only one blends seamlessly with things like desserts and appetizers.

The yellow category was also quickly filled. Raw" and "tender" have enough in common to lump them together (though "meat" again made me ask myself, "What is it about meat that makes it so special?"). Following the thread further, it turned out that "sensitive" was not that far removed from either.

Blue and Purple is where I began to think hard, groping around. Today's purple category is a term associated with a common color. Red flesh, red carpet, and red tape are common, but Red Delicious, the name of an apple variety, not so much. Or perhaps I am an anomaly, not having enough of a taste for apples to know the names of apple varieties.

There is one word in the blue category that is a personal pet peeve of mine. It's full of homonyms, words related to animals that are pronounced the same but have different meanings: bare (bear) and deer (deer) are clever, and kudos to The Times for mousse (moose). But new. What in the world is new? Well, dear readers, a quick Google search reveals that gnu is another name for gnu. But I'm still going to hold a grudge. Next time I see a gnu, I'm going to run for it.