NYT ‘Connections' Hints And Answers For Thursday, May 8

Forbes

07-05-2025

Find the links between the words to win today's game of Connections. getty
Looking for Wednesday's NYT Connections hints, clues and answers instead? You can find them here: Forbes NYT Connections Hints Today: Clues And Answers For Wednesday, May 7 By Kris Holt
Hey there, chat! I hope you're having a terrific week?
Wait, is something wrong? Oh yeah, I referred to you all as 'chat' instead of 'Connectors!' How silly of me.
I think it's very funny that people have started addressing their audience or social media followers or what have you collectively as 'chat.' It's something that, as far as I'm aware, originated on Twitch, where streamers use that term to refer to the people in their live chat room. Now, that nomenclature is catching on elsewhere.
There's no bigger point I'm trying to make here. I just find it amusing.
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 Thursday, May 8 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... PEN
CUP
JOY
WICK
CHOP
CANDLE
OCEAN
DICE
YARD
PENCIL
AUTHOR
BOND
COMPOSE
JONES
SCORECARD
WRITE
And the hints for today's Connections groups are: Yellow group — put it on the page
Green group — essentials for a classic luck-based game
Blue group — some of these groups are getting Riddick-ulously easy. I mean, I wasn't Bourne yesterday!
Purple group — I could make this hint a real teaser, but dangling a carrot on one of these just feels mean 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 — commit to paper
Green group — needs for playing Yahtzee
Blue group — heroes of action movie franchises
Purple group — ____stick 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 — commit to paper (AUTHOR, COMPOSE, PEN, WRITE)
Green group — needs for playing Yahtzee (CUP, DICE, PENCIL, SCORECARD)
(CUP, DICE, PENCIL, SCORECARD) Blue group — heroes of action movie franchises (BOND, JONES, OCEAN, WICK)
Purple group — ____stick (CANDLE, CHOP, JOY, YARD)
No reverse rainbow this time, but a perfect game brings me to a 72nd straight win. (Connectors, you're doing a better job of keeping tabs on my streak than I am. Thank you!) Here's how I fared:
🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟪🟪🟪
WICK immediately had me thinking of John Wick, but of course that could be part of a CANDLE as well. Once I got to CANDLE as I was writing out the word list, that meaning of WICK was ruled out. And, as I got down to BOND, that action movie hero connection was solidified. Along with Mr. WICK and James BOND, the other blues refer to Indiana JONES and (I think?) Danny OCEAN.
The yellows were straightforward enough, so I squared those away. The smaller grid made the greens easy to spot too.
That left the purples. I wasn't sure about the connection here. CHOP made me think of "chop shop," but I didn't think that made sense with the other words. It clicked when my eyes darted back over to CANDLE, though. Candlestick, chopstick, joystick and yardstick. Yup, that makes perfect sense!
A slightly easier game today after a few recent toughies. I was glad for the breather, especially since game 700 is just around the corner…
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. I found out about this song through, of all things, a business newsletter called Morning Brew . I found it quite sweet, so I'm sharing it with you today.
Girl K is an indie pop artist from Chicago and 'Alone With U' is a dreamy, chill headbopper. This went straight onto one of my playlists after one listen:
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 .