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! Happy Friday to one and all.
I hope you have some fun and/or relaxing plans lined up for this weekend. Most of all, though, I really hope you take time to practice self care. Admittedly, I don’t always do the best job of that – I’m very much not in shape – but it’s important to remember to take positive steps forward and look after ourselves as best we can.
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, August 8 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…
- DEGREE
- DRAW
- PAC-MAN
- VEST
- PAINT
- PRESENT
- TIE
- DOODLE
- MARVEL
- SQUARE
- SPACE
- EVEN
- DOZE
- GRANT
- CONFER
- PASS NOTES
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — restore parity in a sporting contest
- 🟩 Green group — hand over, as in a gift
- 🟦 Blue group — just don’t get caught doing these or groaning loudly and you should be fine
- 🟪 Purple group — Rachel and dos may be another word or two worth considering here
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 — TIE
- 🟩 Green group — VEST
- 🟦 Blue group — SPACE
- 🟪 Purple group — DEGREE
What Are Today’s Connections Groups?
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — make equal, as a score
- 🟩 Green group — bestow
- 🟦 Blue group — things you might do during a boring class/meeting
- 🟪 Purple group — words after the letter “MS”
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 — make equal, as a score (DRAW, EVEN, SQUARE, TIE)
- 🟩 Green group — bestow (CONFER, GRANT, PRESENT, VEST)
- 🟦 Blue group — things you might do during a boring class/meeting (DOODLE, DOZE, PASS NOTES, SPACE)
- 🟪 Purple group — words after the letter “MS” (DEGREE, MARVEL, PAC-MAN, PAINT)
I opened with a guess of DRAW, VEST, GRANT and CONFER. Those all seemed like vaguely financially related terms, but left me one away from a group. I then realized that DRAW went with the rest of the yellows after I clocked that SQUARE, TIE and EVEN made sense together.
After that, PRESENT made the most sense with the other words from my first guess. I had the greens at that point.
Seeing MARVEL and PAC-MAN together, I realized they had to be linked by Miss. or Ms. but it took me a moment to understand what made sense with them. DEGREE seemed obvious (as in a Master of Science DEGREE). But the fourth member of the group actually had me chuckling: MS PAINT, as in Microsoft Paint. That’s pretty funny.
The blue connection then made sense to me before I submitted that final group.
No perfect game this time, but I’ve extended my streak to 161 wins. Here’s my grid for today:
🟨🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
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 went to a festival on Sunday primarily to see Olivia Rodrigo – who was terrific – and this band, The Beaches. I did enjoy a few of the other performers and had a fun time overall.
I’ve been a fan of The Beaches for a couple of years now, and this was my first time seeing them live. I thought they were great. Their best-known song is the ultra-catchy “Blame Brett,” but my favorite of theirs is this one, “Edge of the Earth.” I hope you enjoy it too:
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.
