Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Looking for Wednesday’s NYT Connections hints, clues and answers instead? You can find them here:
ForbesNYT Connections Hints And Answers For Wednesday, April 30By Kris HoltHey there, Connectors! I hope you’re having a fantastic week so far.
One thing I’m trying to be more conscious about in my writing is using fewer words and phrases with connotations of violence and weaponry. I’ve used perhaps more than I realized and there are so many of them — hit up, hired gun, take a stab, in the crosshairs, straight shooter… The list goes on.
I don’t necessarily believe in policing speech much outside of things like misinformation, bigotry and other hate speech. But by being more careful about the words we use and detangling violence from everyday language, I think we can make small steps toward a more peaceful society.
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.
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.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Thursday, May 1 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…
- SHAKE
- PURSE
- PAN
- POT
- DOLLY
- FUN
- PRIZE
- TRAVEL
- BREAK
- BITE
- KICK
- ZOOM
- DROP
- REWARD
- TILT
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — the fruits of one’s success
- Green group — just give it up already
- Blue group — ways to get the shot
- Purple group — aww, they’re so little!
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 — winnings
- Green group — stop, as a habit
- Blue group — movie camera verbs
- Purple group — words that precede “-size” to mean small
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 — winnings (POT, PRIZE, PURSE, REWARD)
- Green group — stop, as a habit (BREAK, DROP, KICK, SHAKE)
- Blue group — movie camera verbs (DOLLY, PAN, TILT, ZOOM)
- Purple group — words that precede “-size” to mean small (BITE, FUN, POCKET, TRAVEL)
No perfect game, but that’s 65 wins, one after the other. Here’s how I fared:
🟨🟨🟩🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
I thought PURSE, PRIZE, REWARD and DROP would go together. But I was one away from a group. I realized that DROP didn’t quite belong there. Nowadays, lots of people (including myself) use “drop” to mean the release of something. “Your favorite band just dropped a new album,” for instance. But it’s funny that the same word can also mean the opposite, a cancellation or discontinuation – e.g. “The record label dropped the band.” Anyway, POT was the missing link I needed for the yellows.
The blues were pretty straightforward and those were up next. As I looked at the remaining eight words, I realized the purple and green connections simultaneously. It helped that they were arranged quite neatly – two purples on top of each other, two greens and so on.
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 Friday’s game if you need them.
P.S. Like all good DJs, I am open to requests. Over in our Discord group, Anton suggested a recommendation of Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture. It’s such a sumptuously composed, rousing piece and I haven’t really recommended any classical music at all in this column at all, so why not?
I went down a bit of a rabbit hole here, listening to multiple versions, but I’ve opted for this performance from a special concert to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. I appreciated this comment under the YouTube video: “A Korean conductor leading a Japanese Philharmonic playing a song written by an Italian composer. This is how the world should be. Music unites all.”
I hope you enjoy this, but perhaps not so much that you feel inspired to shoot an apple off of a child’s head with a crossbow:
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. Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.
