NYT Connections Hints And Answers For Sunday, May 4

Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’re having a tremendous weekend.

Happy Star Wars Day to everyone who is celebrating! May the Fourth be with you.

I’m a little out of the loop on Star Wars right now. I’m way behind on the various Disney+ shows, for one thing. I’ve been meaning to check out Andor in particular — I’ve heard nothing but fantastic things about that.

In the meantime, I’m sure today’s grid will have nothing to do with the Star Wars universe at all. Not a bit.

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 hang out with 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 the comments or Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, May 4 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...

• CHEWY

• NOODLE

• CARS

• DARTH

• JAM

• BOBA

• TOUGH

• SHRED

• SOLO

• DRY

• SUGAR

• BLUTO

• TEA

• GENUS

• STRINGY

• MILK

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — what food becomes after it stays on the BBQ too long

• Green group — regular occurrences in instrumental breaks

• Blue group — elements of a popular beverage

• Purple group — in a system that is not far, far away, but with a twist

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 — qualities of overcooked meat

• Green group — play some electric guitar

• Blue group — ingredients in bubble tea

• Purple group — planets/dwarf planet with first letter changed

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 — qualities of overcooked meat (CHEWY, DRY, STRINGY, TOUGH)

• Green group — play some electric guitar (JAM, NOODLE, SHRED, SOLO)

• Blue group — ingredients in bubble tea (BOBA, MILK, SUGAR, TEA)

• Purple group — planets/dwarf planet with first letter changed (BLUTO, CARS, DARTH, GENUS)

My first perfect game in a while extends my streak to 67 wins in a row. Here's how I fared:

🟨🟨🟨🟨 
🟩🟩🟩🟩 
🟦🟦🟦🟦 
🟪🟪🟪🟪

Oh my gosh what a surprise, there was a slight Star Wars theme to today's grid. I would never have guessed. CHEWY (Chewbacca), DARTH (Vader), BOBA (Fett) and (Han) SOLO all popped up. Fun!

Nevertheless, the yellows jumped out at me quite quickly. I only ever want the most tender of meat. I've been listening to a lot of metal lately, so the greens were no problem for me either.

I was a little stumped after that. I figured the tea-related words (TEA, BOBA, SUGAR and MILK) would probably be a red herring. I figured I’d check, just in case. And yes! Those were actually the blues. A surprisingly simple group.

That left the purples. I didn't figure out the connection before submitting them, but it does make sort of sense that we'd have a group like this on Star Wars Day. BLUTO felt like it should have been a giveaway too.

The words refer to Pluto (BLUTO), Mars (CARS), Earth (DARTH) and Venus (GENUS).

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. You’ll find the Monday-Friday editions of this column over at Forbes. See you there!

P.S. In honor of today's occasion and the green group, I went looking for a rock band cover of a piece of Star Wars music. It didn't take me long to find this very fun version of the Imperial March, with the performers all in costume. It starts with Darth Vader using the Force to bring in an electric guitar. Fun stuff:

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!

Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. Also, subscribe to this newsletter if you haven’t already! I have a tip jar over at Ko-fi as well.