NYT Connections today — hints and answers for Tuesday, June 4 (game #359)

NYT Connections homescreen on a phone, on a purple background
(Image credit: New York Times)

Connections is a very tricky game, and one that you are only able to make four mistakes in or suffer the indignity of a failure. If you find yourself on the brink of disaster, you might want to read on for my hints.

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.

Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren
Your Strands expert
Marc McLaren

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief and has been obsessed with Wordle and its ilk for more than two years. He's authored dozens of articles on the game for TechRadar, including a daily today's Wordle answer column and a detailed analysis of the most common letters in Wordle in every position. He's also played every Wordle ever and only lost once and yes, he takes it all too seriously.

NYT Connections today (game #359) - today's words

NYT Connections words for game 359 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today's NYT Connections words are…

  • STAFF
  • HAT
  • MAKE
  • BRIDGE
  • HATCH
  • NET
  • ROBE
  • SPAN
  • CLEAR
  • KEEL
  • CLEF
  • SECTION
  • SUITE
  • BEARD
  • DECK
  • EARN

NYT Connections today (game #359) - hint #1 - group hints

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

  • Yellow: Pay packet
  • Green: Gandalf's wardrobe
  • Blue: Ship shape
  • Purple: Third letter

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 #359) - hint #2 - group answers

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

  • YELLOW: TAKE HOME, AS INCOME
  • GREEN: PARTS OF A WIZARD COSTUME
  • BLUE: FOUND ON A SHIP
  • PURPLE: C-___

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

NYT Connections today (game #359) - the answers

NYT Connections answers for game 359 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today's Connections, game #359, are…

  • YELLOW: TAKE HOME, AS INCOME CLEAR, EARN, MAKE, NET
  • GREEN: PARTS OF A WIZARD COSTUME BEARD, HAT, ROBE, STAFF
  • BLUE: FOUND ON A SHIP BRIDGE, DECK, HATCH, KEEL
  • PURPLE: C-___ CLEF, SECTION, SPAN, SUITE

  • My rating: Easy
  • My score: One mistake

I've marked this as easy even though I didn't get a perfect score, because really I have nobody to blame but myself.

I started by solving the yellow and green groups without too many problems. As always, I pondered a couple of potential directions for the first one – maybe BRIDGE and SPAN could go together meaning 'go over a gap', or maybe BRIDGE and CLEF formed some kind of musical grouping – but after a while decided that EARN, MAKE, NET and CLEAR must go together and indeed they did. Next I spotted that STAFF and ROBE were obvious parts of a wizard costume, and paired them with BEARD and HAT to make a Gandalf-esque green set.

I was pretty sure something boat-like was going to form another group, and had BRIDGE, DECK and KEEL lined up as three of them. The fourth? Well, I know a HATCH is sometimes found on a boat, but not always. The same goes for a SUITE, right? If it's a fancy cruise ship or yacht, at least. So I went with the latter and lost one guess there. I righted my wrong immediately afterwards and was left to play the purple set by default, as always. And no, I wouldn't have got it – for starters, I have no idea what C-SPAN or C-SUITE are…

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


Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Monday, 3 June, game #358)

  • YELLOW: REMOVE, AS BODY HAIR LASER, PLUCK, THREAD, WAX
  • GREEN: TWIST AROUND COIL, SPOOL, WIND, WRAP
  • BLUE: THINGS MADE OF CELLS HONEYCOMB, ORGANISM, SOLAR PANEL, SPREADSHEET
  • PURPLE: B-___ BALL, MOVIE, SCHOOL, VITAMIN

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.

Marc McLaren
Global Editor in Chief

Marc is TechRadar’s Global Editor in Chief, the latest in a long line of senior editorial roles he’s held in a career that started the week that Google launched (nice of them to mark the occasion). Prior to joining TR, he was UK Editor in Chief on Tom’s Guide, where he oversaw all gaming, streaming, audio, TV, entertainment, how-to and cameras coverage. He's also a former editor of the tech website Stuff and spent five years at the music magazine NME, where his duties mainly involved spoiling other people’s fun. He’s based in London, and has tested and written about phones, tablets, wearables, streaming boxes, smart home devices, Bluetooth speakers, headphones, games, TVs, cameras and pretty much every other type of gadget you can think of. An avid photographer, Marc likes nothing better than taking pictures of very small things (bugs, his daughters) or very big things (distant galaxies). He also enjoys live music, gaming, cycling, and beating Wordle (he authors the daily Wordle today page).