Looking for an answer to today's Connections? Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5

Every day we update our Connections clues and hints If the hints are not enough for you, we have also included the answers to all four questions, the category names, and the related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #441

There are spoilers for connection #442 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 help you 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 to know the answer, scroll down further

Here's an even bigger hint: don't forget to look at your feet (or should I say donuts) when lining up your shots

Now, what's the answer to today's 442nd game connection?

Drum roll please

The green category is first today, and it taught me a new word: torus It's what I thought of when I connected bagels, lifesavers, tires, and wreaths

The yellow category was next First I found Blessing, then I started looking for other words related to religion; when I found Consent, I realized that all four were related to authorization

I stumbled upon Solving Blue I tried to connect Slice and Loaf as dealing with bread, but that failed, so I tried words that sounded like action verbs to shake something: Hook, Shank, Slice, Whiff hook, shank, slice, whiff It never entered my mind that the “something” was a golf club But even a broken clock is probably right twice a day

So the purple was to be filled in by rote memorization It worked well for me, since I never understand categories involving homonyms or missing letters/sounds And today's was particularly tricky

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 26 out of 5

Yesterday's puzzle started in the yellow category, after striking out once in the blue category After realizing that “heating” had nothing to do with “boiling” or “fuming” in this problem, I began to think that the clues should not be taken literally I started brainstorming some other over-the-top words to use to describe anger, and Livid and Steaming jumped out

Next came the blue category, which was easy since I found that Heating was the one that fell out of these red-hot clues Nevertheless, I momentarily forgot that Air is part of the acronym HVAC (the other letters are Conditioning and Ventilation)

Then came the purple category: Baking, Laundry, and Origami were immediately obvious, but I remembered that Folding has a less literal meaning, Poker The fourth was a struggle for a while until

After that, Green began to fill it in by rote