Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before today’s NYT Connections hints, here’s what you missed on Monday:
Hey there, Connectors! I hope your week is off to a great start!
Realizing the other day that I have so, so many videos to watch on my various YouTube playlists made me think that I should cancel my Netflix subscription for now and focus on catching up on things there. I’m halfway through the last season of Designated Survivor – I’m still enjoying it, but there was a dip after season one. – and I’d like to watch the latest season of Full Swing and catch up on Queer Eye.
After that, though, the only subscription I’ll have is YouTube Premium. There’s no sense in paying for so many streaming services when I can only use one at a time!
Before we start, I want to highlight the rad community we have on Discord, where we chat about Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. It’s a lovely group of folks. You’re more than welcome to join us.
Also, my weekend editions of this column are available over on my newsletter, Pastimes. If you enjoy the intros and recommendations in my Connections columns, I publish longer pieces along similar lines on Pastimes as well. I think you’d dig them.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Tuesday, May 12 are coming right up. Let’s get rolling!
NYT Connections – How To Play
Connections is a free New York Times daily word game that you can play on the NYT’s website or Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the Connections archive, which includes every previous game.
Connections presents you with a grid of 16 words (sometimes phrases, symbols or numbers). The aim is to arrange them into four groups of four. You don’t know how they hit together or what the category for each group is: that’s what you have to figure out.
There’s only one correct solution and there are often red herrings. You can guess incorrectly three times. A fourth wrong guess, and it’s game over.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to deduce, followed by blue, green and purple. Often, the yellow and green groups have synonyms, the blues have cultural references and the purples have some kind of wordplay involved. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Be ready for curveballs – part of the fun of Connections is in how the NYT shakes things up to keep you on your toes.
As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends using an emoji-based grid. The game tracks your progress too.
Many players take pride in having long win streaks or getting a reverse rainbow – correctly guessing the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order with no mistakes. That adds an extra little challenge.
Today’s NYT Connections Word List
Scroll slowly! I’ll first give you a list of today’s words, then a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll tell you the category names, followed by the full answers.
Today’s 16 words are…
- WEEKEND
- RANDO
- PAULO
- FRANCI
- JOHNS
- MONICA
- WORK
- WONK
- TOME
- SALVADOR
- DIVISION
- VOLUME
- DISTANCE
- OPUS
- REALM
- PETERSBURG
Today’s NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — like War and Peace and The Lord of the Rings
- 🟩 Green group — holy habitation
- 🟦 Blue group — board, sword and shot would fit in here
- 🟪 Purple group — like a frugal person, you can really stretch a dollar here
NYT Connections – One Answer Per Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one answer for each group.
Here we go…
- 🟨 Yellow group — VOLUME
- 🟩 Green group — MONICA
- 🟦 Blue group — JOHNS
- 🟪 Purple group — REALM
Today’s NYT Connections Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — substantial book
- 🟩 Green group — “saint” cities
- 🟦 Blue group — “long” things
- 🟪 Purple group — currencies plus a letter
Today’s NYT 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 last chance to look away.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
Lots of places named after saints on the grid today with PAULO (São Paulo), JOHNS, (Santa) MONICA, (San) SALVADOR and PETERSBURG in the mix. However, I took care of the yellows first since those seemed clear enough.
RANDO made me think of “rand” as FRANCI did for “franc,” so that lead me into the purples.
“Long” WEEKEND and DISTANCE helped me figure out the blues, which took JOHNS out of the equation for the “saint” cities and the greens.
I’m very happy to extend my streak to 436 wins in a row! How did you get on today? Here’s my grid:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
Want to know more about how everything fits together? Let’s explore today’s game in more depth in my NYT Connections Answers Explained column. You can check that out by visiting my author page.
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 don’t listen to a ton of Muse these days. I’m not totally sure why, to be honest. I’ve always liked them. I loved the early stuff and was there the first time they ever played “Knights of Cydonia” live.
I saw some positive buzz around new song “Cryogen”, so I checked it out. I was delighted to hear an old-school Muse song – hooky, operatic, inventive and technically impressive:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more NYT Connections hints and help with 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 newsletter, Pastimes.
