Looking for Thursday’s NYT Connections hints, clues and answers instead? You can find them here:
Hey there, Connectors! The weekend is almost upon us. I hope you make it a good one!
A quick heads up before we begin: going forward, I’ll no longer be writing the daily Connections column for Saturday and Sunday editions at Forbes. I’ll still be with you on weekdays, but my colleagues will be taking the reins at weekends.
Meanwhile, 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.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, May 2 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.
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
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…
- DOG
- STATUE
- GOOSE
- PROP
- TURTLE
- BOTTLE
- WING
- BUST
- SUPPORT
- RELIEF
- BREAK
- LINK
- POST
- RIB
- TORSO
- BRACE
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — artworks created out of wood
- Green group — they help keep something up
- Blue group — backyard and parking lot delicacies, perhaps
- Purple group — rough and swan would fit in here
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 — kinds of carvings
- Green group — pillar
- Blue group — BBQ offering
- Purple group — _____neck
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 — kinds of carvings (BUST, RELIEF, STATUE, TORSO)
- Green group — pillar (BRACE, POST, PROP, SUPPORT)
- Blue group — BBQ offering (DOG, LINK, RIB, WING)
- Purple group — _____neck (BOTTLE, BREAK, GOOSE, TURTLE)
I failed in my quest for a perfect game today, but my streak keeps rolling along with a 66th win. Here’s how I fared:
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟨🟪🟦
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
Me being me, I first suspected that LINK would be a part of a group of Nintendo or video game characters – that’s the name of the playable character in most Legend of Zelda games. I didn’t see what would work with that though, so I forgot about that idea.
The greens were up first. SUPPORT and BRACE made that clear enough. I was a little stuck after that, though.
I thought that DOG, RIB, BREAK and BUST might go together as a group of words related to making fun of someone. But nope, nothing doing there.
Then I realized that RIB and WING might go together as types of meat servings. DOG and LINK (both types of sausages) completed the blues.
STATUE, BUST and TORSO made sense together as kinds of sculptures, but I had no idea about the fourth word. With five options remaining, the purples then became evident.
I had never heard of a RELIEF as a type of carving until now. It’s a type of carving made into a flat panel of wood.
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 some of my other work at my new newsletter, Pastimes. There are a few reasons why you might want to sign up.
P.S. I’m not quite sure how this stayed under my radar for so long, but today’s recommendation is Johnny Cash’s cover of “Rusty Cage” by Soundgarden. Cash has lots of amazing covers, including “I Won’t Back Down,” “Personal Jesus” and, of course, “Hurt.” So, I’m delighted that I have another one to savor that totally slipped by me until now.
Cash’s country/blues rock take on the grunge classic is soulful and electrifying. I hope you dig it:
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. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.
