NYT 'Connections' Hints And Answers For Sunday, June 8

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

It’s a super busy weekend for me. There are a bunch of major video game press conferences going on, not to mention the arrival of the Nintendo Switch 2 on Thursday. This afternoon, I’ll be helping to cover the biggest Xbox showcase of the year over at Engadget.

The fun doesn’t stop there, as tomorrow is the start of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. At the opening keynote, we’ll learn about lots of new features that are coming to iPhones, iPads, Macs and so on later this year. It’s one of the most important events on the tech calendar and a slightly stressful one to work on. But I’d still rather be doing this for a living than just about anything else, so I’m happy to only have maybe 10 events like this a year to wrangle.

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 8 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...

• LAST

• BULL

• BORN

• BRED

• DOE

• STAND

• SPOUSE

• BEAR

• EDUCATION

• CACHE

• DOVE

• HOLD

• LUTE

• STAY

• OCCUPATION

• HAWK

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — hang in there

• Green group — some might say certain Wall Street workers have a sheep mentality

• Blue group — like a terrible photo, citizenship and years active

• Purple group — bakin' and 'stache would fit in here

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 — STAY

• Green group — BEAR

• Blue group — BORN

• Purple group — BRED

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• Yellow group — persist

• Green group — animal metaphors in economics

• Blue group — sidebar info on a person's Wikipedia page

• Purple group — homophones of slang for money

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 — persist (HOLD, LAST, STAND, STAY)

• Green group — animal metaphors in economics (BEAR, BULL, DOVE, HAWK)

• Blue group — sidebar info on a person's Wikipedia page (BORN, EDUCATION, OCCUPATION, SPOUSE)

• Purple group — homophones of slang for money (BRED, CACHE, DOE, LUTE)

LUTE seemed very out of place here, as did DOE. When I said them both out loud, the connection became pretty clear, so I looked for two more words that aligned with them to get the purples.

They refer to bread (BRED), cash (CACHE), dough (DOE) and loot (LUTE).

I thought I had the yellows next with STAND, STAY, HOLD and BEAR, but not quite! I was one away. I realized my error and swapped out BEAR for LAST.

The greens and blues both crystallized for me at that point. I thought the money metaphors would be the blues, though. I hadn't heard of DOVE in this context before, but the other three made sense together They refer to BULL market and BEAR market, as well as a monetary HAWK and DOVE (a hawk pushes to keep inflation low, while a dove places more emphasis on other areas of monetary policy, like trying to keep unemployment low).

I figured that the blues would be things you see on a certain kind of application form, but not quite. One of the most interesting projects I've learned about recently is an effort by a group of photographers to replace the often-terrible headshots are on notable people's Wikipedia pages. I wrote about that for Engadget a couple of months ago:

Not quote a perfect game today, but I've extended my streak with a 103rd win in a row. For the record, here's how I fared:

🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟨🟩🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦

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. It's Sunday, so that usually means I go with a more laidback song. I'm going to recommend "First Day Of My Life" by Bright Eyes.

This one holds a lot of nostalgia for me. In the early days of my relationship with my former partner, that was one of "our songs." So when I randomly heard it the other day, some old memories bubbled up.

I'm very happy in my current relationship. Although some might suggest that you should distance yourself as much as possible from a former partner after you separate, that doesn't always have to be the case.

My former partner and I are still friends (my current partner is well aware and knows I am loyal to her, so there are no issues on that front). I look back on those days fondly and there's no reason for me to poison any happy memories. It was all part of my journey to where I am now, a point where I am more mature mentally and emotionally:

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

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