Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
Looking for Monday’s NYT Connections hints, clues and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there, Connectors! I hope your week is off to a great start.
I have to admit, I’ve been feeling a little checked out recently. It’s been harder to focus on the things I know I ought to be doing, both work-wise and for myself. I can’t put my finger on why this is the case (though I suspect it’s for a few reasons).
But that’s okay. What’s important is being able to recognize something that’s amiss and acting on it. I don’t want to feel this way. It has been quite a while since my last therapy session, so I got one booked in.
I don’t mean to be a drag and nor am I seeking pity or sympathy – I’m in fairly good spirits overall. My point is that it’s okay to express vulnerability and, more importantly, you should never shy away from seeking help when you need it. There’s always someone you can turn to.
Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to hang out with us.
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Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, May 6 are coming right up.
How To Play Connections
Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT’s website or Games app.
You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.
There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.
Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.
If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.
If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.
Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.
What Are Today’s Connections Hints?
Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.
Today’s 16 words are…
- HUSH
- RIBBON
- BABY
- TOY
- MINUTE
- MOCKINGBIRD
- GAME
- RAZZMATAZZ
- STILL
- SET
- COMPACT
- PEACE
- MATCH
- CALM
- KIDNEY
- TOURNAMENT
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — shhh
- Green group — you’re gonna have to avoid love to win these
- Blue group — be careful what you put in the dryer if you don’t want your clothes to get like this
- Purple group — like tauntaun and jiberish (look closely there)
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Today’s Connections groups are…
- Yellow group — silence
- Green group — tennis competition units
- Blue group — comparatively small
- Purple group — starting with synonyms for “tease”
What Are Today’s Connections Answers?
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- Yellow group — silence (CALM, HUSH, PEACE, STILL)
- Green group — tennis competition units (GAME, MATCH, SET, TOURNAMENT)
- Blue group — comparatively small (BABY, COMPACT, MINUTE, TOY)
- Purple group — starting with synonyms for “tease” (KIDNEY, MOCKINGBIRD, RAZZMATAZZ, RIBBON)
I didn’t get a perfect game today, but my winning streak is now at 69. I feel like there’s a word I ought to use here… Here’s how I fared:
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟪🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
MOCKINGBIRD and RIBBON caught my eye at the outset, but I wasn’t quite sure why. The greens were straightforward enough though and I locked those in first. The yellows were fairly evident too.
I was stumped after that, though. I tried a guess of BABY, RIBBON, MOCKINGBIRD and TOY, thinking they might be emblems of innocence. Nothing doing there, unfortunately. But at least I had the knowledge that two of those were blues and two were purples.
After a while, I realized that MINUTE perhaps referred to something being small instead of a unit of time measurement. I guessed a group of that, COMPACT, TOY and… MOCKINGBIRD? I don’t know what I was thinking when BABY was right there. Urgh. Anyway, that got me the blues.
As you might suspect, I only got the purples by default. they refer to kid (KIDNEY), mock (MOCKINGBIRD), razz (RAZZMATAZZ) and rib (RIBBON). Does anyone ever actually use “razz” in that context anymore? Or RAZZMATAZZ for that matter?
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Wednesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. I think I needed this right now today. After a suggestion from one of you (thank you, Bethanie!), I went down a rabbit hole of various versions of “Sunny Side of the Street.” I used to listen to the Frank Sinatra one quite a bit when I had him on heavy rotation but there are so many good ones. Here’s a bunch of them, including a really performance in Barcelona from a few years back:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
