Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today’s Connections hints and answers, here are Thursday’s:
Hey there, Connectors! The weekend is almost upon us, but you won’t want to go into it with a broken streak. Oh, no no. So, your pal Kris is here to help make sure that number ticks up by one yet again.
The FIFA Club World Cup has only just wrapped up, but already the European soccer season is getting underway with qualifiers for continental competitions. My beloved Dundee United are back in such competitions for the first time in a few years. We have a few rounds to get through before we get to the UEFA Conference League (the third-tier European continental competition) proper. Keep your fingers crossed for us, eh?
Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to hang out with us.
Discord is 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. I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, July 25 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 our hints 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…
- OH
- MARY
- FAIR
- MOTHER
- MUM
- BEE
- IN
- OUT
- MA
- BALL
- BED
- SECRET
- FOUL
- QUIET
- OK
- PRIVATE
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — on the down low
- 🟩 Green group — like hi, PR and or
- 🟦 Blue group — things you might hear at Wrigley or Fenway
- 🟪 Purple group — like Bey, city and triggerfish
One Word For Each Connections Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one word for each group.
Today’s Connections word hints are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — QUIET
- 🟩 Green group — OK
- 🟦 Blue group — OUT
- 🟪 Purple group — BED
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — hush-hush
- 🟩 Green group — state abbreviations
- 🟦 Blue group — baseball calls
- 🟪 Purple group — queen _____
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 — hush-hush (MUM, PRIVATE, QUIET, SECRET)
- 🟩 Green group — state abbreviations (IN, MA, OH, OK)
- 🟦 Blue group — baseball calls (BALL, FAIR, FOUL, OUT)
- 🟪 Purple group — queen _____ (BED, BEE, MARY, MOTHER)
The MUM, MA and MOTHER trifecta seemed like a red herring, in large part because there wasn’t anything else I saw that went with them. But more importantly because I quickly saw two other groups that two of the words would fit into.
The first of those turned out to be the yellows. “Keeping MUM” is an expression meaning to keep something secret. The greens were up next after that. They refer to Indiana (IN), Massachusetts (MA), Ohio (OH) and Oklahoma (OK). States aren’t one of my strong suits, but I did know those abbreviations.
Baseball isn’t a strong area for me either, but I do know enough to have figured out the blues here. Last but not least, BED and MOTHER were enough for me to figure out the purple connection.
A regular rainbow this time, and one that takes me to a single game away from a 150 win streak. Here’s my grid for this one:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back with you all here on Monday. In the meantime, you can check out my weekend editions of this column in my newsletter, Pastimes.
P.S. I really love mashups (a Frankensteined track that splices at least two songs together). Apparently, one that blends “Hard to Explain” by The Strokes and “Genie in a Bottle” by Christina Aguilera is a bit of a classic in the scene, and yet I had never heard of it until this week. It’s very good! I enjoyed this quite a lot:
Here’s another mashup I had never heard until a few days ago. It also blends two songs I love – “Toxic” by Britney Spears and “Change (In the House of Flies)” by Deftones — to create something very cool:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! 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. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
