Today's NYT Connections: Hints To Help Solve Today's Game, May 31, 2024

Each Connections puzzle features a 16-word grid from which you’re supposed to make four groups of words that share something in common. These categories are as random as they come, and could be anything from a synonym or music genre to “a word that sounds like it hurts.” New York Times insiders explain, “Typically, categories involve trivia or the meaning or structure of words.” They also often add “red herrings” — words that seem like they could be in more than one category, so that makes it trickier (and more fun, depending on who you ask). Yet each puzzle has only one solution.

Each group is color-coded according to its difficulty level. The yellow group is the easiest and most obvious connection, green and blue are medium, and purple is the trickiest of the bunch. Technically, you only need to figure out three groups — the fourth will naturally be left over after 12 words are eliminated. If you’re finding it difficult to make a connection, you can shuffle the board to make it easier to spot one.  

Click on four words and hit Submit to see if you’ve guessed a group correctly. If you’re right, those words will be removed from the board and displayed in a color-coded bar above, along with the key to the category. You might get a message telling you that you’re one word away from a connection if you’ve selected three correct words, but it’s up to you to figure out which one to swap. If you’re wrong, that counts as a mistake, and players lose the game if they make four of those. The hints below might help you prevent that from happening.