Looking for Sunday’s NYT Connections hints, clues and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the start of a new week.
It’s Monday, and you know what that means around here: we kick off the column with a fun, upbeat song that will hopefully get you moving and get those endorphins flowing.
For reasons I’ll explain in a second, I’m doubling down today with two songs. The first one is from Alphabeat. I really enjoy everything I’ve head from that band and “Fascination,” which was a hit for them in the U.K., is such a bop:
Our second upbeat song isn’t going to be for everyone, but I’m definitely more excited to share this one. Last year, Babymetal and Electric Callboy – two bands known for playing what’s often called “party metal” – collaborated on a song called “Ratatata.” It’s loud, it’s over-the-top and it’s so much fun. The guitars are heavy and the harsh vocals can be intense, but I hope that you’ll give it a shot.
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I have no earthly idea how “Ratatata” or Electric Callboy completely flew under my radar for so long, but I’m absolutely obsessed with it (and them, for that matter). I’ve barely been able to stop listening to the song for the past 10 days. I’ve been watching reaction videos and every live version I can find. It’s now my morning alarm song.
Most importantly for our purposes, it gets me dancing. I haven’t quite been able to perfect Babymetal’s routine for “Ratatata,” but maybe I’ll get there someday. I absolutely cannot wait to see them live soon. I am going to lose my mind when they play this one:
Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for NYT Connections and this column on Discord. We have a great little community over there and we chat about more than NYT games. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot.
It’s 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, since I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, April 28, 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…
- MOUSSE
- DRAIN
- BARE
- TIRE
- HAIR
- BORE
- TIRE MARK
- EXHAUST
- PLAIN
- SPRAY
- SPARE
- FIBER
- WAX
- SIMPLE
- FINGERPRINT
- GEL
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — essentials for those who want to style and profile
- Green group — just the basics
- Blue group — forensic findings
- Purple group — dull people’s impact on someone
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 — hair products
- Green group — austere
- Blue group — clues at a crime scene
- Purple group — weary
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 — hair products (GEL, MOUSSE, SPRAY, WAX)
- Green group — austere (BARE, PLAIN, SIMPLE, SPARE)
- Blue group — clues at a crime scene (FIBER, FINGERPRINT, HAIR, TIRE MARK)
- Purple group — weary (BORE, DRAIN, EXHAUST, TIRE)
Hey now, my streak is now up to 62 wins. No perfect game today, though. Here’s how I fared:
🟨🟩🟦🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
MOUSSE, SPRAY and WAX seemed like they would go together at first, but as I read all of the words out loud to double check I’d written out the word list properly, I realized that the first of those could be a homonym.
So I tried a group of MOUSSE, BARE, HAIR and BORE as in animal soundalikes — moose, bear, hare and boar. But nope! Not even close to a group there. I overthought things, as usual.
As it turned out, BORE went with the purples. I thought that group would be blue at most. Seems kind of simple for a purple group. Still, it’s fun that EXHAUST and TIRE work together both here and as car parts.
The yellows were up next and I did not grumble about those hair products to myself at all. The blues then made sense to me.
That left the greens, and I was very familiar with those. I didn’t eat any vegetables as a kid and nor did I like the sauce that McDonalds used on Big Macs, so as a kid I would always ask for my order to be plain. Bun, patties and cheese, that was it.
My go-to McDonalds order is much healthier these days. Probably because I haven’t eaten at McDonalds in years.
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. This is my partner’s kid’s favorite song, so this one is for her. I wager you might have heard this already since it’s such a massive hit, but “Apt.” by Rosé (of Blackpink fame) and Bruno Mars is just such a fantastic pop song. It’s very funny to me that Mars went from this to “Fat Juicy & Wet” for his follow-up single:
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.
