NYT 'Connections' Hints And Answers For Sunday, June 1

Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far.

Happy Pride to everyone who’s celebrating! Solidarity with LGBTQ+ folks, forever and ever.

I went to a show last week without really knowing what to expect from it, but I probably should have. It was a stop on composer Bear McCreary’s first-ever North American tour.

You might know his work from Outlander, The Walking Dead, God of War, Black Sails, Battlestar Galactica or The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power. McCreary also released a prog metal album called The Singularity last year.

He played a mix of all that stuff with a band, which makes perfect sense! I’m not a huge fan of his, but I do broadly like his work (I haven’t listened to the album though!). The show was structured in a strange way. It little jarring to go from a symphonic metal track into, say, the Outlander theme and back again.

Still, I enjoyed the show. It was very cool to hear that God of War music and The Walking Dead theme — even though I dropped off that show forever ago — in a live setting.

These videos aren’t from the show I went to. I’m just including them to give you a flavor of the experience:

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 join 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 Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, June 1 are coming right up.

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...

• DIVE

• SLUSH

• FENCE

• LOCK

• SWIM

• HEDGE

• ICE

• HAUNT

• MUTUAL

• GUARANTEE

• JOINT

• RIDE

• CINCH

• SHOOT

• TRUST

• ESTABLISHMENT

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — meet 'the bar

• Green group — run for it

• Blue group — it's in the bag

• Purple group — you'll definitely want one in case of emergency

One Word For Each Connections Group

Need some extra help? 

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

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

Today’s Connections word hints are…

• Yellow group — HAUNT

• Green group — RIDE

• Blue group — LOCK

• Purple group — TRUST

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• Yellow group — local watering hole

• Green group — compete in a modern pentathlon

• Blue group — ensure as a victory

• Purple group — _____ fund

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 — local watering hole (DIVE, ESTABLISHMENT, HAUNT, JOINT)

• Green group — compete in a modern pentathlon (FENCE, RIDE, SHOOT, SWIM)

• Blue group — ensure as a victory (CINCH, GUARANTEE, ICE, LOCK)

• Purple group — _____ fund (HEDGE, MUTUAL, SLUSH, TRUST)

That's me up a 96th win on the trot with a perfect game. Just four more to go... Here's how I fared:

🟪🟪🟪🟪 
🟨🟨🟨🟨 
🟩🟩🟩🟩 
🟦🟦🟦🟦

The purples were pretty straightforward this time, I felt. SLUSH and HEDGE made that clear off the bat.

DIVE and HAUNT did the same for the yellows. I haven't gone to the pub for a pint in ages and should definitely fix that.

I hesitated a little with the last two groups. I had a good idea about the blues, but wasn't sure I'd heard of ICE in that context before.

As I mentally grouped ICE with those, the other four made perfect sense together in terms of actions that Olympians might carry out (eh, I was close enough). So I wrapped up the greens, then the blues for victory.

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back over at Forbes for the Monday-Friday editions for the column. And if you haven’t subscribed to Pastimes already, definitely do that! It would be super sweet of you.

P.S. Not that I'm checking Instagram much now, but there's a cool account I follow that strips the instrumentation out of songs, leaving only the vocals. I found something similar with this clip of Marvin Gaye performing "I Heard It On The Grapevine" with the backing track removed.

He had such an incredible voice. I can't think of many better ways to start a Sunday than by listening to Marvin Gaye do his thing:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!

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