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 Wednesday:
Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a smashing week so far!
Occasionally, someone will email me to ask for career – or even life – advice, and I don’t always know quite how to respond. I consider myself very fortunate to be in my current position and I don’t think my professional journey is something that will necessarily be replicable. (My career path is something I might write about in more detail at some point if anyone is interested.)
That said, I am happy to share a thing or two I’ve learned in my *mumbles* years of writing for a living and being alive. One of those is that I always believe I will learn something from each person I meet. We all have different professional and life experiences to share and give others something new to consider. I can sometimes pick up some indirect knowledge or some insight just through small talk.
However, I don’t think I can exactly tell someone that when they ask me for advice. It feels a bit paradoxical and condescending, like a self-fulfilling statement or something.
Before we start, I want to highlight the rad community we have on Discord, where we chat about Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. It’s a lovely group of folks. You’re more than welcome to join us.
Also, my weekend editions of this column are available over on my newsletter, Pastimes. If you enjoy the intros and recommendations in my Connections columns, I publish longer pieces along similar lines on Pastimes as well. I think you’d dig them.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Thursday, June 25 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…
- POLONIUM
- CRANIUM
- COMPACT
- HOCKEY
- CROQUETTE
- TRACKPAD
- LEAD
- SQUASHED
- MERCURY
- DUCTILE
- DENSE
- MICROPHONE
- MONITOR
- FRANCIUM
- PRINTER
- COMPRESSED
Today’s NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — they might be in front of you right now
- 🟩 Green group — not much room to breathe
- 🟦 Blue group — fundamentally, these are not good for you
- 🟪 Purple group — like some people who don’t enjoy parties, these may take off quickly
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 — MONITOR
- 🟩 Green group — DENSE
- 🟦 Blue group — POLONIUM
- 🟪 Purple group — CRANIUM
Today’s NYT Connections Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — computer peripherals
- 🟩 Green group — tightly packed
- 🟦 Blue group — hazardous elemental metals
- 🟪 Purple group — starting with bird homophones
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…
I thought I saw a group that started with ball sports in POLONIUM, CROQUETTE and SQUASHED (polo, croquet and squash), but didn’t see a fourth word that worked right away. Since that didn’t quite pan out, I took a pot shot at the four elements I saw instead and got the blues.
The computer devices were next up, and the greens were easy to spot from there. that left the purples. I didn’t clock the category there, but I’ll take a 480th win in a row.
How did you get on this time? Here’s my grid:
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
I guess I’ve already covered 3/4 of a red herring. Plus maybe TRACKPAD for “track” if it’s just supposed to be sports in general? Everything else seems relatively straightforward, so I’ll just handle the purples here in lieu of a separate Answers Explained column. They refer to:
- CRANIUM > crane
- CROQUETTE > crow
- DUCTILE > duck
- HOCKEY > hawk
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. I had no idea Hoobastank were still going until this recent single popped up in my recommendations. “How Do You Sleep? is pretty good!
I think the best compliment I can pay to this is that it sounds like a song you’d hear on the soundtrack of a Tony Hawk skateboarding game or at Warped Tour. I’m very excited to go to Warped Tour:
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.
