NYT Connections May 18, 2025: Hints, tips and more

Here’s a fresh take on today’s NYT Connections roundup, capturing the hints, strategies and full solution for Puzzle #677—all rewritten for clarity and flow.

Quick Hits

Student Tasks: Think assignments, drills, exercises and lessons.

Encouragement Words: Phrases like “almost” and “close” cue that you’re on the right track.

Open-Minded Phrases: Words signaling flexibility—“easy,” “open,” “game,” “flexible.”

‘A’ Connection: A trickier set united by the letter “A,” with a nod toward grades and rankings.

Each night at midnight, The New York Times releases a brand-new Connections puzzle: 16 seemingly unrelated words scattered across a colorful grid. Your mission is to group them into four quartets—each sharing a hidden theme—before running out of your four allowed misses. The color-coding (yellow for easiest, then blue, green, and purple) hints at escalating difficulty but can also disguise deceptively tricky linkages.

If you’re ever stumped, reshuffling the board can help you spot fresh patterns.

Today’s Puzzle (#677) Solutions

Yellow – Student Assignments

Assignment

Drill

Exercise

Lesson

All staples of academic or training routines—basic building blocks of any curriculum.

Blue – Words of Encouragement

Almost

Close

Not Quite

Warm

Perfect for cheering someone on when they’ve nearly cracked the puzzle.

Green – Open to Anything

Easy

Flexible

Game

Open

These convey a go-with-the-flow attitude—ready for whatever comes next.

Purple – United by ‘A’

Area

Athletic

Excellent

One

The toughest set: each word contains an “A” and loosely suggests grading or ranking, though some stretches (like “area”) prompted debate.

Final Thoughts

Whether you raced through today’s grid or needed a few reshuffles to see the patterns, Connections remains a terrific daily brain-teaser—flexing both vocabulary and lateral-thinking muscles. Check back tomorrow for another fresh challenge and more of those satisfying “aha!” moments.