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

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

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.

Your Connections expert
Marc McLaren
Your Connections 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 #390) - today's words

NYT Connections words for game 390 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

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

NYT Connections answers for game 390 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

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.

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).