NYT 'Connections' Hints And Answers For Sunday, May 18

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

I mentioned this over on Discord, but I’ll be sending out the first non-Connections edition of Pastimes in the next couple of days. It’s the next step of expanding this newsletter. I’m a little nervous, but excited about it. I really hope this one’s going to resonate with you and that it’ll be the start of something fun and cool.

The aim is to build on what I’ve been doing with these Connections intros for the past… however long I’ve been doing them, especially in terms of the tone. I’m gonna try to keep them earnest, from a place of optimism and, above all else, authentic.

I plan to write about a really broad range of topics in these essays (I don’t have a better word for them yet), but they’ll all have something to do with time and how we spend it — be it on ourselves, what we think about, entertainment and so on.

Really, I’m giving myself the bandwidth to write about whatever I want. I mostly just like the name Pastimes. Even if I still often misspell it with two T’s.

(10 points to anyone who finds the little hint in this intro as to the subject of this week’s essay.)

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, May 18 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...

• ALMOST

• ATHLETIC

• OPEN

• CLOSE

• WARM

• FLEXIBLE

• EXCELLENT

• EXERCISE

• AREA

• DRILL

• ONE

• GAME

• EASY

• ASSIGNMENT

• NOT QUITE

• LESSON

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — keep the kids (or adults!) busy

• Green group — like getting three green and two yellow letters on a Wordle guess

• Blue group — I'm down

• Purple group — this could reference a battery size or how a tent looks from the front

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 — tasks for a student

• Green group — encouraging responses in a guessing game

• Blue group — up for anything

• Purple group — what "A" might mean

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 — tasks for a student (ASSIGNMENT, DRILL, EXERCISE, LESSON)

• Green group — encouraging responses in a guessing game (ALMOST, CLOSE, NOT QUITE, WARM)

• Blue group — up for anything (EASY, FLEXIBLE, GAME, OPEN)

• Purple group — what "A" might mean (AREA, ATHLETIC, EXCELLENT, ONE)

Another perfect game extends my streak to an 82nd win. Is it less fun for you all when I just keep winning over and over again? Here's how I fared:

🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩

The grid was looking like a big of a tough one at first glance but at least I quickly got the yellows to eliminate some possibilities.

ATHLETIC and FLEXIBLE could have gone together, but nothing else really made sense with them. I drew a link between FLEXIBLE and OPEN, though, and that opened up the blues.

It was pretty straightforward from that point. The greens became clear but of course I had to submit the purples first without figuring out the connection between them. If you believe that I am going to think more than I have to during the weekend, you don't know me all that well.

Still, I don't think I would have figured that group out! EXCELLENT refers to "A" as a letter grade, and the Athletics MLB team are often called the As. AREA I suppose is an algebra thing, but I don't really get the ONE reference here?

Anyway, I sent through the greens to wrap things up.t

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. I like to go with a more laidback recommendation on Sundays. It just feels right, you know? I was a little stumped as to what to go with today, but it didn't take long at all for the YouTube algorithm to come up trumps.

Multi-time Grammy winner Jacob Collier is known for his expansive arrangements and conducting the audience during live performances. Here, he improvises a piece with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center.

I absolutely loved this video. I found it deeply beautiful and surprisingly emotional. It's immensely cool to see a plethora of world-class musicians (and the audience) having fun and making something cool together just for the sake of it.

I might just ditch my previous plans and spend my entire Sunday listening to all of Collier's work:

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

On weekdays, you can find this column over at Forbes. Please follow my blog there 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!

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