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 Sunday:
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the start of a new week. It’s going to be a good one for you, I can feel it in my bones.
As always in this here column on Mondays, we get the party started with a fun, upbeat song. I’m going with a Europop classic today.
You don’t need to know a lick of Romanian to sing along to the hook of “Dragostea din Tei” by O-Zone, aka the “Numa Numa” song. It’s unironically catchy as heck:
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 Monday, May 25 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…
- BROW
- CAP
- LID
- CYA
- WHIT
- ATM
- PIN
- JOT
- LASH
- LOL
- SCRAP
- SHIRT
- STICKER
- BALL
- TIA
- SHRED
Today’s NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — huh, they just give this stuff away these days
- 🟩 Green group — not much
- 🟦 Blue group — sumtimes u jst hav 2 keep fings shrt, k?
- 🟪 Purple group — if you’re lucky, you might be the apple of this to someone
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 — SHIRT
- 🟩 Green group — SHRED
- 🟦 Blue group — ATM
- 🟪 Purple group — LASH
Today’s NYT Connections Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — common promo items
- 🟩 Green group — tiny bit
- 🟦 Blue group — texting abbreviations
- 🟪 Purple group — eye____
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…
I got the eye____ words first and was taken aback that those were the purples. I’ll take it, though! (To be “apple of someone’s eye” means to be more important to them than anything else.)
ATM, CYA and LOL made sense together as abbreviations. But I didn’t see what could go with them. PIN didn’t quite fit.
I eventually realized that made sense with the yellows. TIA is not a texting abbreviation I’ve ever heard of and I have been texting for over 20 years. Still, it was the only thing that remotely made sense with the rest of the blues to me at that point.
The greens were leftovers for me today. I don’t think I’ve heard of WHIT in that context before.
Tricky one today. That’s my 449th win in a row, though.
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 Tuesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. I remain very excited for the new album from Saint Agnes, which is out this Friday. Every song they’ve released from it has been a cracker.
“Get Them Out” (which has swears from the beginning, so be warned) is an industrial punk track that really scratches the right itch for me. The band describe it as “an homage to ‘March of the Pigs’ by Nine Inch Nails” and that makes total sense to me:
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.
