Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before today’s NYT Connections hints, here’s what you missed on Wednesday:

Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week so far.

A local chain of music stores recently shut up shop and auctioned off its inventory. I thought I might have gotten lucky and snagged a bargain, but no such joy. Pretty much every lot I was interested in was listed at more than I was willing to pay.

It was only after the fact I noticed that a more budget-friendly version of Dave Grohl’s signature guitar ended up selling for quite a bit below retail price. It would have been well within my price range, so I’m a little bummed I didn’t spot it sooner. I’ll never own the Gibson version of the guitar, though. On a popular reseller site, listings for that model start at around $20,000.

Anyway, one of these days, I’ll get around to buying the guitar I actually want. You’ve gotta treat yourself sometimes!

Before we start, I want to highlight the rad community we have on Discord , where we chat about Connections , the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. It’s a lovely group of folks. You’re more than welcome to join us.

Also, my weekend editions of this column are available over on my newsletter, Pastimes . If you enjoy the intros and recommendations in my Connections columns, I occasionally publish longer pieces along similar lines there as well. I think you’d dig them.

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Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Thursday, July 30 are coming right up. Let’s get rolling!

Connections is a free New York Times daily word game that you can play on the NYT ’s website or Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the Connections archive, which includes every previous game.

Connections presents you with a grid of 16 words (sometimes phrases, symbols or numbers). The aim is to arrange them into four groups of four. You don’t know how they hit together or what the category for each group is: that’s what you have to figure out.

There’s only one correct solution and there are often red herrings. You can guess incorrectly three times. A fourth wrong guess, and it’s game over.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to deduce, followed by blue, green and purple. Often, the yellow and green groups have synonyms, the blues have cultural references and the purples have some kind of wordplay involved. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Be ready for curveballs – part of the fun of Connections is in how the NYT shakes things up to keep you on your toes.

As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends using an emoji-based grid. The game tracks your progress too.

Many players take pride in having long win streaks or getting a reverse rainbow – correctly guessing the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order with no mistakes. That adds an extra little challenge.

Today’s NYT Connections Word List

After today’s Connections word list, I’ll give you a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll reveal the categories, followed by the full answers.

  • JUGGLING
  • CARNIVAL
  • DOT
  • FAIR
  • BINGO
  • RIGHT
  • POOL
  • NOSE
  • MONEY
  • GOOD
  • BEER PONG
  • CELEBRITY
  • VIKING
  • MARK
  • PRINCESS
  • JUST

A Hint For Today’s Connections Groups

The hints for today’s Connections categories are:

  • 🟨 Yellow group — how it should be
  • 🟩 Green group — like golf, if you’re real bad at it
  • 🟦 Blue group — if these were somehow on straight roads, perhaps they’d control their speed automatically
  • 🟪 Purple group — they hit the spot

One Answer For Each Connections Group

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one answer for each group.

  • 🟨 Yellow group — JUST
  • 🟩 Green group — POOL
  • 🟦 Blue group — CELEBRITY
  • 🟪 Purple group — NOSE

Today’s Connections Categories

Today’s Connections groups are...

  • 🟨 Yellow group — virtuous
  • 🟩 Green group — activities with multiple balls
  • 🟦 Blue group — cruise lines
  • 🟪 Purple group — on the _____, to mean "precise"

What Is Today’s Connections Answer?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your last chance to look away.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

  • 🟨 Yellow group — virtuous (FAIR, GOOD, JUST, RIGHT)
  • 🟩 Green group — activities with multiple balls (BEER PONG, BINGO, JUGGLING, POOL)
  • 🟦 Blue group — cruise lines (CARNIVAL, CELEBRITY, PRINCESS, VIKING)
  • 🟪 Purple group — on the _____, to mean "precise" (DOT, MARK, MONEY, NOSE)

The yellows jumped out at me first, largely thanks to GOOD. Seeing CARNIVAL and PRINCESS close to each other helped me get the blues. (I was referring to cruise control with the hint!)

From there, MARK, NOSE and DOT all landed next to each other. I figured they'd be the greens along with MONEY.

I decided to submit the other group first since I didn’t clock the category. I thought they’d be the purples. But no! They were green. I then slid through the purples for win number 515 in a row.

How did you get on this time? Here's my grid:

Be sure to check my blog for hints and the answer for tomorrow’s game of Connections if you need them.

P.S. Maybe if I used TikTok I’d have learned about this song sooner. Magnus Ferrell, son of Will, is a pretty darn good singer in the realm of bedroom pop. I don’t much care about the whole nepo baby thing as long as said offspring are actually talented. And “Asleep Talking” is strong evidence that Ferrell jr. is a talented cat:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

Please follow my blog for more NYT Connections hints and help with other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. I’d really appreciate that as it helps me out. If you share this column with others who play Connections, that would be lovely too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column and more of my writing at my newsletter, Pastimes .