NYT Connections today — hints and answers for Friday, July 5 (game #390)

If you're anything like me you'll find today's Connections to be a difficult one. But it's also possible I was just having a bad day. Read on to see how my game went, and to take advantage of my hints if you need them.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Wordle hints and answers , Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

NYT Connections today (game #390) - today's words

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• YEN
• BOND
• MAD
• POWER
• EURO
• O
• Q
• FORTUNE
• LONG
• M
• K
• PINE
• BUBBLEGUM
• NATURE
• DESIRE
• MONEYPENNY

NYT Connections today (game #390) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• Yellow: Want
• Green: Glossy read
• Blue: The name's…
• Purple: They go before a music genre

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #390) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: YEARN
• GREEN: MAGAZINES
• BLUE: CHARACTERS IN BOND MOVIES
• PURPLE: WORDS THAT PRECEDE “POP” IN MUSIC GENRES

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #390) - the answers

The answers to today's Connections, game #390, are…

• YELLOW: YEARN DESIRE, LONG, PINE, YEN
• GREEN: MAGAZINES FORTUNE, MAD, NATURE, O
• BLUE: CHARACTERS IN BOND MOVIES BOND, M, MONEYPENNY, Q
• PURPLE: WORDS THAT PRECEDE “POP” IN MUSIC GENRES BUBBLEGUM, EURO, K, POWER

• My rating: Hard
• My score: 3 mistakes

Yesterday's Connections was relatively easy; today's is anything but that.

Once again, it was short words that confused me, or in this case single letters: Q, M, K and O all feature here. Two of them were obvious, at least, with the words BOND and MONEYPENNY joining Q and M for a 007-themed group (blue). The yellow one wasn't too bad: this was simple synonyms for YEARN (DESIRE, YEN, PINE, LONG).

However, the green group really tripped me up. I spotted that FORTUNE, NATURE and MAD were all magazines, but I couldn't identify the fourth. Apologies to Oprah Winfrey, but it never occurred to me that O magazine would be the fourth. I went through three alternative answers before guessing that and solving the puzzle with no room to spare.

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Thursday, 4 July, game #389)

• GREEN: THINGS STORED BY A WEB BROWSER CACHE, COOKIES, DATA, HISTORY
• BLUE: SINGLE ROTATION CYCLE, LAP, REVOLUTION, TURN
• YELLOW: ROMANTIC RAPPORT ATTRACTION, CHEMISTRY, FIREWORKS, SPARKS
• PURPLE: WORDS BEFORE “BELL” BAR, DINNER, LIBERTY, TINKER

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.