Hey there, Connectors! The weekend is almost upon us, but first let’s make sure we keep all your Connections streaks intact (and have some fun doing so), shall we?

Some months back, I went to a ceramic painting place with my partner and her daughter. We had a really fun time, as me and the little one worked on a piece together. I haven’t seen the ceramics we painted since that day. My partner has them, and I’m more than happy for her to hold onto the items.

I have my own little physical reminder of that day, though. The kiddo found some sheets of promotional stickers that the cafe offers. She placed some of the stickers on my phone case. They’re still in place and in decent condition. I smile pretty much every time I look at them.

We absolutely live in an overly materialist and consumerist society. Many of us have too much unnecessary stuff in our lives. Still, there’s something to be said about having physical reminders of what really matters to us.

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. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, July 11 are coming right up.

How To Play Connections

Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT’s website or Games app.

You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.

There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.

Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.

If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.

If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.

Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find our hints Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.

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...

• UBER
• SWAN
• LOVE
• VIAL
• GOOSE
• GOOGLE
• FOWL
• ZOOM
• YAHOO
• SIREN
• MIEN
• DODO
• PHOTOSHOP
• FOLK
• GOOF
• OFFAL

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• ? Yellow group — like FedEx, Xerox, Rollerblade and Jet Ski
• ? Green group — such a bird-brain!
• ? Blue group — you've got this covered. No need to refrain from taking a guess, since you'll surely score a hit and be full of glee
• ? Purple group — roll off the tongue in the worst way

One Word For Each Connections Group

Need some extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

• ? Yellow group — ZOOM
• ? Green group — GOOSE
• ? Blue group — SIREN
• ? Purple group — FOWL

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• ? Yellow group — companies that have become verbs
• ? Green group — silly person
• ? Blue group — kinds of songs
• ? Purple group — homophones of synonyms for "despicable"

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 — companies that have become verbs (GOOGLE, PHOTOSHOP, UBER, ZOOM)
• ? Green group — silly person (DODO, GOOF, GOOSE, YAHOO)
• ? Blue group — kinds of songs (FOLK, LOVE, SIREN, SWAN)
• ? Purple group — homophones of synonyms for "despicable" (FOWL, MIEN, OFFAL, VIAL)

The tech companies/apps jumped out at me right away, of course. I write about tech news in my other main gig – which, as it happens, is at a YAHOO-owned publication. So finding out which one of those belonged in another group was the first task. Thankfully, the presence of GOOF and DODO made that clear. GOOSE and YAHOO went with those and I had the greens locked up (and yes, those really are all English words for a silly person). That also removed DODO and GOOSE as red herrings for the other bird-related words.

The yellows were up next. A slightly tougher group than usual for a yellow category, I thought, but I can accept it... kind of. What I can’t accept is the inaccurate category title because – pushes glasses up – PHOTOSHOP is not a company. It’s an app owned and operated by Adobe.

It took me a minute to figure out where to go next. I tried the animal-related words – SWAN, FOWL and OFFAL – with MIEN. That put me one away from a group. As I looked at SWAN and SIREN next to each other, though, the blues then became clear.

The purples finally made sense when I read them out loud. They refer to foul (FOWL), mean (MIEN), awful (OFFAL) and vile (VIAL). I didn’t know the word MIEN until now. According to Merriam-Webster, it is "a somewhat literary term that refers to a person’s appearance and behavior toward others — that is, their outward manner or demeanor." Hey, I just learned something.

That’s a perfect game and win number 136 on my current streak. Here’s my grid for today:

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That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back with you all here on Monday. In the meantime, you can check out my weekend editions of this column in my newsletter, Pastimes.

P.S. I think we should have an upbeat song heading into the weekend. As much as I enjoy Jamiroquai, I never, never spell the band’s name correctly at the first attempt. I always have to look it up. Fortunately, punching “Canned Heat” into YouTube or Apple Music is all I need to do to hear a particularly groovy tune:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

Please follow my blog 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. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my new newsletter, Pastimes.

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