As the week draws to a close, don’t forget to keep your Connections winning streak going—or start a new one if you recently ran out of luck or this is your first time here.
The brainteaser was launched by The New York Times in June of last year and has quickly gone on to become the newspaper’s second-most-played game behind Wordle, another word-based puzzle.
If you’ve never played before, Connections challenges players to uncover threads connecting a series of words. Instructions on how to play the game are below. Clues and the answers for today’s puzzle are toward the end of the article.
How to Play ‘Connections’
Connections tasks players with grouping 16 words into four categories based on association. For example, Thursday’s game linked the words “Attraction,” “Chemistry,” “Fireworks” and “Sparks” under the category “Romantic Rapport.”
Each of the four categories is labeled with a color, which also signifies their difficulty level. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green, blue and purple. However, the puzzles are rarely straightforward, using homophones and wordplay, among other techniques, to keep players challenged.
Explaining why the game has four difficulty levels, the Times‘ puzzle editor Wyna Liu said she toyed with different ways to make Connections more of a challenge.
“There would have to be a mix of categories for the game to feel challenging and satisfying,” she said in the Times. “Some categories might be defined by their use of wordplay—palindromes, homophones, adding or dropping letters and words—rather than the literal meanings of the words on the cards.”
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However, the familiarity of the words used, and how often they pop up in modern life, are also difficulty factors, although less-common words aren’t only used in the harder categories. “Item overlap,” where one word can be linked to multiple categories, is another way Connections tests players.
“Caution was needed when including items that might stand out in the grid, since they would invite immediate scrutiny,” Liu explained.
The answers for today’s Connections puzzle will be revealed at the end of this article, so scroll with caution if you want to work them out yourself.
‘Connections’ #390 Clues for Friday, July 5
Newsweek has some hints to help you figure out today’s Connections categories.
Yellow: These words are associated with wanting.
Green: Each of these answers is something you might read.
Blue: For these answers, think of a classic spy movie franchise.
Purple: These words precede a popular genre of music.
‘Connections’ #390 Answers for Friday, July 5
Yellow Category: YEARN
Yellow Words: Desire, Long, Pine, Yen
Green Category: MAGAZINES
Green Words: Fortune, Mad, Nature, O
Blue Category: CHARACTERS IN BOND MOVIES
Blue Words: Bond, M, Moneypenny, Q
Purple Category: WORDS THAT PRECEDE “POP” IN MUSIC GENRES
Purple Words: Bubblegum, Euro, K, Power
Did you guess the answers correctly? If so, congratulations. If not, there will be another opportunity to crack the puzzle tomorrow.
Connections is released at midnight in your local time zone. Newsweek will be back with another round of hints and tips for each new game.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.