Note : Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today via my author page .

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.

If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord . I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.

I’m going to assume that you’ve already beaten today’s game. We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning .

Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Tuesday, May 12:

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 substantial book (OPUS, TOME, VOLUME, WORK)

The category title takes care of all the heavy lifting here. Just as picking up such a book would constitute heavy lifting.

Connections – Green Group

🟩 "saint" cities (MONICA, PAULO, PETERSBURG, SALVADOR)

  • Santa MONICA
  • São PAULO
  • Saint PETERSBURG
  • San SALVADOR

🟦 "long" things (DISTANCE, DIVISION, JOHNS, WEEKEND)

A long DISTANCE relationship is one in which a couple maintain their connection even though they live far apart and don’t see each other in person often.

Long DIVISION is a system through which one divides a number by another that has at least two digits.

Long JOHNS are a type of leg-length underwear that’s typically worn in cold weather.

A long WEEKEND is one that lasts more than two days, often because of a national holiday that falls on a Friday or Monday. In the U.S., Thanksgiving is often a four-day long WEEKEND that runs from Thursday to Sunday.

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 currencies plus a letter (FRANCI, RANDO, REALM, WONK)

  • FRANCI > franc
  • RANDO > rand
  • REALM > real
  • WONK > won

Connections – Red Herrings

JOHNS could have landed in the green group because of the city of St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador.

There were a few words that included people’s names as well: JOHNS, MONICA, PETERSBURG, SALVADOR, PAULO, RANDO and FRANCI. For what it’s worth, I felt the need to double-check that none of the words started with George or Ringo.

If you’d like to chat about today’s game of Connections and just about anything else with me and a very lovely group of people, you can do just that in our Discord community . We’d love for you to hang out with us.

I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers tomorrow, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes .