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:
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Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the start of a new week! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I’m delighted to return as your host for another weekday run of Connections hints and answers columns.
As ever, we’re going to kick off the Monday edition of the column with a fun, upbeat tune. I’d just really love for you to get the week started with a boogie, y’know? I’m willing to be that fewer than one percent of people reading this column will know this song, so I hope you’ll roll with me on this one.
JJ Bull became a bit of a viral sensation with his unofficial World Cup song for Scotland. He recently released another album (Out Of Your League) that’s full of football-related songs, which I understand he largely makes up on the spot using a loop station. I think it’s magic.
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One of my favorite songs from the record is “I’m No Substitute.” If you didn’t watch the video or pay too much attention to the lyrics later on in the song, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a synthpop banger about refusing to be someone’s second-choice relationship option. It is kind of that. It’s also an ode to the impact of super-sub Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who often scored goals when he came off the bench for Manchester United back in the day, including the winner in the 1999 Champions League final:
Curious to know what you all think of this one. I reckon it’s a cracker, akin to James McFadden scoring from 40 yards against France.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, July 6 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…
- ATOM
- BUMBLEBEE
- TNT
- THUNDERBOLT
- VOLCANO
- TINDERBOX
- DNA
- ROCKET SKATES
- MATCHA
- BOMBSHELL
- EARTHQUAKE PILLS
- REVELATION
- SOLAR SYSTEM
- GRIND RAIL
- SHOCKER
- IRON BIRD SEED
Today’s NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — well, that was unexpected
- 🟩 Green group — many kids put these together, often with the help of their parents
- 🟦 Blue group — used in the hope of never hearing another “hmeep hmeep”
- 🟪 Purple group — a new beginning for many
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 — REVELATION
- 🟩 Green group — DNA
- 🟦 Blue group — ROCKET SKATES
- 🟪 Purple group — TINDERBOX
Today’s NYT Connections Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — stunning news
- 🟩 Green group — science fair model subjects
- 🟦 Blue group — ACME products used by Wile E. Coyote
- 🟪 Purple group — starting with dating apps
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…
The yellows seemed straightforward enough to me, so I knocked those out swiftly. REVELATION was the key to that group.
I was trying to think of where I might have seen ROCKET SKATES before and the only thing that made sense was cartoons. (IRON) BIRD SEED then brought to mind the Road Runner, which eventually helped me figure out the blues.
ATOM, DNA and SOLAR SYSTEM seemed like fundamental science concepts. VOLCANO made sense with those. The science fair wasn’t a thing where I went to school, but I’ve seen this stuff in movies and TV shows a million times.
That left the purples, for which I figured out the category eventually. It’s a little sneaky that Grindr crosses the space of GRIND RAIL. I dig it.
That extends my win streak to 491.
How did you get on this time? 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 tomorrow’s game if you need them.
P.S. Since TNT was on the grid, let’s go with the AC/DC song of the same name for today’s recommendation. I’m really looking forward to seeing them live in a couple of months and doing the whole “oi!” thing with this track:
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.
