NYT Connections Hints Today: Clues And Answers For Wednesday, May 7

Looking for Tuesday’s NYT Connections hints, clues and answers instead? You can find them here:

It’s Wednesday, and you know what that means: it’s time for another game of Connections!

Last week, Duolingo revealed that it was using generative A.I. to create new language courses and plans to replace contractors with the technology.

I’ve been using the app for a few years to help me improve my French. Progress had been very slow, but I learned a few things I didn’t know before. I had reached a streak of nearly 800 consecutive days of taking a bitesize French lesson.

I did want to keep that streak going, but as soon as I read that story, I had no hesitation in deleting my Duolingo account and removing the app from my phone. I’m going to be looking at other, more efficient ways of learning the language that works with my schedule.

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 Wednesday, May 7 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…

• CHORAL
• CUPS
• KNIT
• SAVE
• RECOVER
• PURL
• BUT
• QUARTS
• SWORDS
• BESIDES
• MEND
• PENTACLES
• OPEL
• HEAL
• WANDS
• EXCEPT

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group —

• Green group — not quite all of it
• Blue group — seeing these might portend positive things for your future. Or negative things. I have no idea how this stuff is supposed to work!
• Purple group — knowing how many carrots there are can help you see these more clearly

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 — get better, as a broken bone
• Green group — not including
• Blue group — tarot minor arcana suits
• Purple group — homophones of gemstones

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 — get better, as a broken bone (HEAL, KNIT, MEND, RECOVER)
• Green group — not including (BESIDES, BUT, EXCEPT, SAVE)
• Blue group — tarot minor arcana suits (CUPS, PENTACLES, SWORDS, WANDS)
• Purple group — homophones of gemstones (CHORAL, OPEL, PURL, QUARTS)

I very nearly got a reverse rainbow today, but nevertheless, I extended my streak to a 71st win. I’m very happy with that. Here’s how I fared:

🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩

I felt that OPEL and QUARTS were dead giveaways for the purples. Once I saw those, it was just a case of saying each word out loud until I found the remaining two. They refer to coral (CHORAL), opal (OPEL), pearl (PURL) and quartz (QUARTS).

I figured that SWORDS, WANDS and CUPS would have something to do with cards but I didn’t know the exact connection there. I went with PENTACLES since it was the only other plural and that worked out for me.

From there, it was a 50/50 shot as to which group was green and which was yellow. But alas, I lost my shot at the reverse rainbow. I got the yellows first. Pretty self-evident group there. That left the greens (which weren’t difficult either) for a solid win.

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 Thursday’s game if you need them.

P.S. I thought about holding off on using this song until next Monday’s intro. But it wouldn’t quite fit.

As much as I love it, I don’t think “Move On Up” by Curtis Mayfield is all that upbeat. Sure, it’s a funky, soulful number, but it’s in a minor key, which makes it feel more downbeat. There’s a strange dissonance there. Still, it’s a fantastic track:

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.