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 Thursday:
Hey there, Connectors! The weekend is almost here. Let’s make sure you get there with your Connections streak intact.
The World Cup is finally underway and it’s been a long, long road to get there for many of the teams and fans. One Scotland fan traveled further than most. Craig Ferguson spent the last few months walking from Los Angeles to Boston – all while wearing a kilt – to help raise awareness of mental health issues.
I’m sure there’ll be a lot of Scotland fans who are happy to buy him a pint at our first game of the tournament against Haiti tomorrow. I won’t be there myself, unfortunately, but I have donated to the cause for which Ferguson is raising funds, Scottish Action for Mental Health.
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I’ve been following his remarkable journey on social media. You can check out a recent video diary from his trek here:
Before we start, I normally write weekend editions of this column over on my newsletter, Pastimes. However, I’m taking this weekend off because I need a little break. Thanks for understanding!
I also want to mention 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.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, June 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…
- SCHOOL DAYS
- BED HEAD
- QUOTE UNQUOTE
- CURSE WORD
- COPY EDITOR
- SPELL CHECKER
- BANK TELLER
- PACK RAT
- CHARM BRACELET
- MURDER MYSTERY
- MIRROR SELFIE
- MOUTH GUARD
- PRIDE ROCK
- ECHO PARK
- DELTA AIRLINES
- HEX KEY
Today’s NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — careful, there might be a witch around
- 🟩 Green group — many of one
- 🟦 Blue group — run it back
- 🟪 Purple group — often times, once you get going, you’ll go with the flow
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 — CHARM BRACELET
- 🟩 Green group — PRIDE ROCK
- 🟦 Blue group — QUOTE UNQUOTE
- 🟪 Purple group — MOUTH GUARD
Today’s NYT Connections Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — starting with incantations
- 🟩 Green group — starting with animal group names
- 🟦 Blue group — starting with synonyms for “repeat”
- 🟪 Purple group — starting with parts of a river
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…
CURSE WORD and HEX KEY made the yellows clear to me right away, and clued me into today’s gimmick. PRIDE and SCHOOL got me to the greens; COPY and ECHO did the same for the blues; and DELTA enlightened me as to the purple connection.
That gives me a 467th win in a row to wrap up the week.
How did you get on this time? Here’s my grid:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
I don’t think we need full-on Answers Explained column today, since everything seems self-explanatory outside of perhaps the greens. Those refer to:
- MURDER MYSTERY > murder of crows (love that one)
- PACK RAT > pack of wolves
- PRIDE ROCK > pride of lions
- SCHOOL DAYS > school of fish
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Once again, I’m taking this weekend off from writing the column – my weekend editions usually appear in my newsletter. In the meantime, you can hang out with me and a group of lovely folks who play Connections and other word games over on Discord. I’ll be back with you here on Monday!
P.S. I do really like Teenage Joans. This Aussie rock duo never miss. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve heard from them, and recent single “Coming Up From Hell” is no different. I’ll always appreciate a music video with “Bohemian Rhapsody” references too:
P.P.S. And just remember one thing during this World Cup…
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 (normally!) read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.
