Looking for answers to today's Connections? The Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 1.8 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, #497.

There are spoilers for Connections #498. Only those who want to know the answer to today's Connections 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 the answer, scroll down further.

There is a bigger clue. Today's puzzle should intrigue every pool except the canned staples, driving schools, and swimming pools.

Now, what is the answer to today's game #498 Connection?

Drum roll, please.

You must have been hungry, because you quickly solved the yellow category with Kidney, Mung, Navy, and Pinto. In other words, the pressure was only on to solve the more difficult categories.

Next, the green category caught my attention with Draw, Grab, Hook, and Pull. Blue was even easier and hinted at the standard gear shifts: drive, low, neutral, reverse. Yes, PRINDL.

The purple category wasn't too difficult either, but that may be because I finally saw “Deadpool & Wolverine” over the weekend. It's a bit of a play on words with each ending in a pool: 'Car', 'Dead', 'Liver', 'Whirl'.

Are you reading this in a slow time zone? According to the Connections Companion, this is the Connections answer to game #497, which had a difficulty level of 2 out of 5.

Yesterday may hold the record for how quickly I was able to solve the categories; from the time I saw Article and Column, it was only a few seconds before Feature and Story were in the yellow category.

I struck out once trying to connect all the sports-related words I saw before stumbling on Clatter and Ruckus; Row came to me after a while, but it took me a while to remember that Racket has multiple meanings.

Once the green was settled, blue was next, followed by ball, net, paddle, table, and all the essential paraphernalia of a game of ping pong.

That leaves the purple category, which may require a dictionary to parse. At the very least, you'll recall Schoolhouse Rock (Conjunction, what's its function~). Okay, fess up: which English major on the Conjunction crew came up with this?