Note: Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today via my author page.
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.
If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord. I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.
I’m going to assume that you’ve already beaten today’s game. We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning.
Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Friday, July 3:
Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained
Connections – Yellow Group
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🟨 positive feelings (BLISS, FELICITY, HAPPINESS, WARM FUZZIES)
Yep, these are straightforward enough.
Connections – Green Group
🟩 retro expressions of approval (COOL BEANS, FAR OUT, GROOVY, RIGHT ON)
I use COOL BEANS and GROOVY fairly often! But you’d perhaps have heard these more commonly in the ‘70s, ’80s and ’90s.
Connections – Blue Group
🟦 bad things to give someone (COLD SHOULDER, DIRTY LOOK, HARD TIME, RUNAROUND)
To give someone the COLD SHOULDER means to dismiss or ignore them.
Giving someone a DIRTY LOOK might mean, for instance, scowling at them.
If you were to give someone a HARD TIME, that would involve making things difficult for them, perhaps by annoying or harassing them.
To give someone the RUNAROUND means to refuse to help them and direct them elsewhere.
Connections – Purple Group
🟪 what things pronounced “T” might refer to (GOLF ACCESSORY, GOSSIP, HOT DRINK, SHIRT)
A golfer will play their first shot at each hole after placing a ball on a tee. This is the GOLF ACCESSORY referenced here.
“The tea” is slang for GOSSIP. Asking someone to “spill the tea” means you’re requesting all the juicy details.
Tea is the best beverage in the world. While I can enjoy iced tea, I far prefer it as a HOT DRINK. I drink 4-10 cups of the stuff a day!
And then we have the T-SHIRT, which some may refer to as a “tee.”
Connections – Red Herrings
We had a bunch of temperature-related phrases on today’s grid: WARM FUZZIES, COOL BEANS, COLD SHOULDER and HOT DRINK.
If you’d like to chat about today’s game of Connections and just about anything else with me and a very lovely group of people, you can do just that in our Discord community. We’d love for you to hang out with us.
All going well, I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers on Monday, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes.