Looking for the answer to today's Connections puzzle, #406, from July 21, the difficulty level for this puzzle from Connections Companion was 27 out of 5, a slight increase in difficulty compared to yesterday's solution

We update our Connections clues and hints daily And if the hints aren't enough, 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, #405

There are spoilers for connection #406 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 hints to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

These hints should at least give you the answer to today's connection If not, you can read even more important tips

There is a bigger clue From this week's puzzle, four words seem completely random Perhaps they apply to the purple theme Also, stump has nothing to do with trees

So, the answer to today's game #406 connection is

Drum roll please

The trick to today's puzzle would be that the short math abbreviation is also another word that could fit elsewhere Tan (tan) is a color that seems to fit the tree theme, along with stump (stump) and saw (saw)

I actually struggled with yellow today and luckily found green first Composition, make-up, and structure stayed connected, but I was stuck on the fabric used to represent the cloth I threw in fabric as a guess and got it right

From there, I was able to sweep away the blue as a tool

That left campaign, canvass, organize, stump, log, max, mod, and tan I had no idea that stump was a political term, so I left these eight words alone for a while Thankfully, I put four short words together as a guess, and the answer was correct: “Stump

That left the last four words, which later found their way to support the candidate Today I learned a new use for the phrase stump

Enjoy the rest of your weekend Hopefully today's puzzle will help you start the day in a pleasant mood

I'm reading this late in the day According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 26 out of 5

I guess the traps for today's puzzle are juice, soda, sweat, and bodily fluids

This led me, upon coming to my senses, to find the blue category with battery, charge, juice, and power, which actually did not go into that previous misclassification

From there I stuck to sweat My grid shifted so that labor and sweat were next to each other The connection was striking, and finding the connection between effort and work was short work

Even with the way this grid shifted, I could have flipped a coin to see which category I would finish first Fluid, graceful, natural, and smooth, the categories formed a small square to the left of the grid

I've said it before, but having a purple category is fun and makes me smile in the morning This was cut by Burst, Papa, Mainstream, and Soda I don't agree that pop = mainstream, but I understand the aim