Beat Today's NYT ‘Connections' With Hints And Answers For Thursday, May 22

Forbes

21-05-2025

Find the links between the words to win today's game of Connections.
Each day's game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. As such, 'today's Connections hints and answers' depend on where you are in the world. In case you need them, here are the Connections hints and answers for Wednesday:
Hey there, Connectors! I hope you're having a fabulous week.
I recently read my favorite story in ages. Paul Jenkinson, a retired social worker, is travelling Canada and offering people a friendly ear to talk about whatever they want.
He's not charging them any money, just listening. He likens it to any other kind of volunteering, but this feels like a project that's really going to make a difference to those who sit and share what's on their mind. Such a lovely, important initiative.
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.
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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 Thursday, May 22 are coming right up.
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.
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...
And the hints for today's Connections groups are:
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we're starting to get into spoiler territory.
Today's Connections groups are...
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...
I got a perfect game today to bring my streak up to 86 wins! Here's how I fared:
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
That's a fun bunch of words and phrases! I love the Asterix and Obelix reference (from ASTERISK and OBELISK). I loved those comics as a kid.
Anyway, two things jumped out at me right away: the green movie characters and the Washington, D.C. landmarks. I went with the latter first to get the blues taken care of.
The spelling of CAPITOL (as in the U.S. Capitol building) was a giveaway there. The Reflecting POOL and Washington Monument (which is an OBELISK) went neatly with those and MALL was the only other one that made sense.
After that, I got the greens squared away. RIDDLER could have been here given his green suit in Batman Forever (a childhood (and current) fave of mine), but that didn't quite fit the brief. SHREK is from the Shrek movies, ELPHABA is from Wicked, HULK is from the Marvel films (and The Incredible Hulk) and the GRINCH is, well, The Grinch!
At that point, the yellows became pretty clear. I put through the purples first. I figured the connection might be "associated with something two-faced" or some such, but not quite. Of course The RIDDLER is a famous riddle-giver! I didn't really know anything about the SPHINX in this context, though.
Anyway, that left the yellows to wrap things up on this journey of mine toward 100 wins in a row. Also, I can't say I'm a fan of the title of a category including a word (or a very similar one) that's in said group. It happened twice today with MALL and RIDDLER!
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 Friday's game if you need them.
P.S. This video of The All-American Rejects playing a backyard show popped up on my feed the other day. They've been playing a few shows like this recently, including a graduation party the other night (the cops showed up and shut things down after letting the band play one last song).
I really enjoyed the first couple of All-American Rejects albums in particular. (A new album is coming soon.) The song they play here, 'Move Along,' has been a mainstay of my iPods and playlists for a very long time. The positive message in the lyrics hits home.
I love the energy here, with fans packed into the backyard and others peering over the fence and everyone singing along. There's no barricade or security; everyone's just having a good time. More bands, especially well-known ones, should do stuff like this. Still, I'd be very interested to find out what the neighbors thought of this show:
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.