Before we get to today’s Connections hints and answers, here are Monday’s:
Hey there, Connectors! I hope your week is off to a wonderful start.
I’m counting down the days until my building’s pool is open again and I can take a daily dip. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my rowing machine (and being able to watch TV and films as I get in a little workout). But nothing quite beats a swim on a hot day. It’s refreshing and it’s exercise! A terrific combination.
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 Tuesday, May 13 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 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…
- BAZAAR
- SUPREME
- VACUUM
- VEGGIE
- EVERGREEN
- BATHROOM
- FAIR
- HAWAIIAN
- PIPE
- INFRARED
- PLAIN
- OUTLET
- MARIGOLD
- MARKET
- DRY
- QUICKSILVER
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- Yellow group — where you can spend your hard-earned cash
- Green group — many would argue one of these does not belong here (a pineapple topping does not bother me, personally)
- Blue group — hue’ll be all right
- Purple group — linked by Kenny Omega’s nickname, Winston Wolfe’s job title and a 2007 thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson
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 — places to shop
- Green group — kinds of pizza
- Blue group — ending with colors
- Purple group — ____ cleaner
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 — places to shop (BAZAAR, FAIR, MARKET, OUTLET)
- Green group — kinds of pizza (HAWAIIAN, PLAIN, SUPREME, VEGGIE)
- Blue group — ending with colors (EVERGREEN, INFRARED, MARIGOLD, QUICKSILVER)
- Purple group — ____ cleaner (BATHROOM, DRY, PIPE, VACUUM)
A regular rainbow for me today as my streak moves up to 77 wins in a row. Here’s how I fared:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
So many words with double vowels today! I wondered if there might be something going on with those but that turned out not to be the case.
BAZAAR and MARKET made the yellows fairly clear. I was a little hesitant about including FAIR at first, but the risk paid off.
After that, I felt that HAWAIIAN and VEGGIE were solid entry points into the greens. That took care of the second group of the day. Did you know that the HAWAIIAN pizza was invented in Canada?
I spent a few minutes looking at the last eight words on the grind and in particular INFRARED. Once my eyes moved toward MARIGOLD, the blues were very clear.
That left the purples for the win and, yeah, I did figure those out before submitting them. Not a very difficult game today! I look forward to dealing with a Lynchian nightmare of a grid tomorrow.
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 Wednesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. It’s always fun when the YouTube algorithm offers up a band I’ve never heard of before and the song turns out to be a cracker. Such was the case with this one by a indie rock band from Minnesota called Durry. I love the production on “idk i just work here.” The song title’s pretty darn funny too:
The brother-and-sister duo first came to prominence a few years ago when a song of theirs called “Who’s Laughing Now” popped off on TikTok. That song’s very good as well, so let’s double up on today’s recommendations:
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.