It’s the middle of the week and there are only a few days left until the weekend. Let’s focus on what we need to do today and don’t forget to check the Connections response for today May 22.
If you’ve never played it before, Connections challenges you to sort a group of 16 words into four groups where all the words are well… connected. This connection could come from the fact that they share a similar meaning, being part of a place name, objects found in a kitchen or anything else really!
Although it may seem easy, the connection groups each have a different difficulty level – yellow being the easiest and purple being the hardest. For this reason, working today’s login answer could be rather tricky. You may get one group right away, but another might be a mystery to you. Fortunately, we are here to help!
Originally developed during the New York Times games department’s annual game jam, the beta version of Connections was released in June 2023. Since then, it has become one of the most popular games the NYTimes has to offer, beaten only by Worlde. Although some connections have been made with the BBC’s Only Connect programme…
Tip for Today’s Connections Answer
Instead of jumping straight to the answer, let’s start with some clues for today’s Connections puzzle:
- YELLOW – These words refer to parts of the body.
- Green – Linked to a type of vehicle.
- Blue – Words that imply extraction.
- Purple – Things that are alive.
- Shoulders belongs to the Yellow group, Ride to Green and Pares to Blue.
Remember: yellow is the easiest group to find, followed by green and blue, with purple being the hardest set of words to connect.
Connecting words for May 22
Here are the words included in today’s Connections puzzle – see if the clues above help you make a connection before checking out today’s answer:
| wheels | Peels | The bees | Knees |
| Shells | Gossip | Shoulders | To go up |
| Head | Whip | Whore | Caffeine |
| Auto | Intercoms | Toes | Parés |
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Connections response for May 22
Without further ado, here is Connections’ answer for today:
- Body parts in “HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES AND TOES” – Head, knees, shoulders, toes
- Car, informally – Auto, Ride, Wheel, Whip
- Removes cover from – Pares, Peels, Shells, Pods
- “Buzzing” things – Bees, Caffeine, Gossip, Intercoms
Today’s puzzle gave us two groups that really helped us find the more difficult combinations. I started grouping the head, knees, shoulders and toes together since they are body parts. After finishing the first one, my second attempt was a complete failure. However, on my third, I got the Green group. The real challenge was finding the Blue and Purple groups. For the first one I followed the idea of putting words that seemed to have similar sounds – in one of my guesses I put Bees but that didn’t work. The latter group was simply the result of grouping the remaining words together.
What to play after Connections?
The obvious answer to this question is Wordle, but if you’ve already solved that problem today, the New York Times has other games. When it comes to word games, the NYTimes has the Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee, Letter Boxed, and Strands games, which are still in beta. If you want to get away from words, you can also try Tiles – a pattern matching game – or Sudoku.
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Apart from the NYTimes, there is Semantle – where you have to reach the secret word by guessing its meaning. Spelling doesn’t matter in Semantle, rather you need to pay attention to the numerical value of your guesses to plot your way to the answer. If you prefer to keep the Connections format, it’s worth visiting Puzzgrid. You’ll find hundreds of Connections-style puzzles here, but the problem is that you only have three minutes to solve them.
(You can also just watch Only Connect on BBC iPlayer…)
If you’re in the mood to read, we explained why the NYTimes Mini Crosswords are a reliable joy and interviewed Jonathan Knight, head of games for the NYTimes.
Good luck solving today’s connections!
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