How To Play Connections

Connections is the second-most popular NYT Games puzzle game outside of the main crossword itself, and an extremely fun, free offering that will get your brain moving every day. Play it right here.

The goal is to take a group of 16 words and find links between four pairs of four of them. They could be specific categories of terms, or they could be little world puzzles where words may come before or after them you need to figure out. And they get more complicated from there.

There is only one set of right answers for this, and you only get a certain number of tries so you can’t just spam around until you find something. There are difficulty tiers coded by color, which will usually go from yellow, blue/green to purple as difficulty increases, so know that going in and when you start linking them together.

You pick the four words you think are linked and either you will get a solve and a lit up row that shows you how you were connected. If you’re close, it will tell you that you’re one away. Again, four mistakes you lose, but if you want to know the answers without failing, either come here, or delete your web cookies and try again. If you want to play more puzzles, you can get an NYT Games subscription to access the full archives of all past puzzles.

NYT Connections Hints And Answers – Sunday, May 17

Below, we’ll get into some extra hints for each Connections group – Yellow, Blue, Green and Purple – and then the official clues and answers.

Here are today’s Connections words:

• pipe
• grammar
• squeeze
• line
• steep
• primary
• boil
• main
• hose
• strain
• high
• fleece
• stiff
• duct
• pour
• grade

An Extra Hint for Each Connections Group

Here’s an extra hint to help you solve each Connections group today:

• 🟡Yellow group – Water or other fluids (or gas) might flow through these.
• 🔵Blue group – Think Earl Grey or chamomile.
• 🟢Green group – What a con-man might do.
• 🟣Purple group – Students attend these at various ages.

One Word for Each Connections Group:

Here’s one word from each group to help get you started:

• 🟡Yellow group – Line
• 🔵Blue group – Steep
• 🟢Green group – Fleece
• 🟣Purple group – Grade

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Alright, the full spoilers follow here as we get into what the groups are today:

• 🟡Yellow group – Conduit
• 🔵Blue group – Tea-making verbs
• 🟢Green group – Swindle
• 🟣Purple group – “School” modifiers

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

The full-on answers are below for each group, finally inserting the four words in each category. Spoilers follow if you do not want to get this far. The Connections answers are:

• 🟡Yellow group – duct, line, main, pipe
• 🔵Blue group – boil, pour, steep, strain
• 🟢Green group – fleece, hose, squeeze, stiff
• 🟣Purple group – grade, grammar, high, primary

Here’s the finished grid:

The Connections Bot rated this at 4/5 difficulty, but I solved it pretty quick and totally out of order. In fact, I’d say today’s Purple Group was the easiest and most obvious I’ve ever seen. Then again, sometimes you just spot stuff that other people don’t, or have experience with words or connections that aren’t as obvious to everyone.

I suppose the red herrings today were words like HOSE which sounds a bit like PIPE, or MAIN and PRIMARY possibly meaning the same thing. I got the green group first: FLEECE, HOSE, SQUEEZE and STIFF just seemed incredibly obvious as I read through the words. These were cons, words used to describe being swindled.

Then the various purple words seemed very obviously types of school. GRADE school, GRAMMAR school, HIGH school, PRIMARY school.

I suppose the tea-making blue words might be less obvious if you don’t drink tea, but as someone who enjoys a cup from time to time, I’m well-accustomed with the process: BOIL the water, POUR it over the teabag or loose-leaf strainer or infuser, let it STEEP and then STRAIN the liquid. Then, of course, sip it carefully because it’s likely very hot!

That left the yellow group, typically the easiest, and I suppose these words were obvious enough as well, I just came to them last.

Ho’d you do on today’s Connections? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Find more guides to Wordle, Pips and Strands on my blog where you can also follow me for TV and movie and video game coverage. Let me know if you have any fun puzzle games in your rotation that I should try on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Have a great Sunday!