NYT Connections hint (Mon, 18 May)

Looking for some Connections hints to help with today's puzzle on Monday, 18th May? Monday is not everyone's favorite day of the week. In fact, it's generally considered one of the tougher weekdays!

Settling in to a brand new week at work after a weekend of freedom can be tough, but Connections can be even tougher. If you're stuck on today's puzzle, let our handy hints and answers help you out.

How to play Connections

Connections is one of the most popular (and challenging) daily puzzle games published by the New York Times (owners of Wordle). The aim of Connections is to group the 16 words of the day into four groups, where each group of four words has a common theme.

For instance, the words "Hook", "Nana", "Peter", and "Wendy" are all Peter Pan characters. Or to take another example, "Action", "Ballpark", "Go", and "Stick" are all words which commonly come just before the word "Figure". These are the kinds of Connections you'll need to make to solve the puzzle.

Your job is to figure out what these themes are that connect the various words together - but be wary, because a lot of the time there are deceptive red herring connections placed purely to throw you off! To win the game, you have to find all four Connections without making 4 mistakes. On your fourth mistake, the game is over and the answer is revealed automatically.

Each of the four groups in each day's Connections puzzle is also assigned a different colour, which represents how easy or difficult the Connection is to find. These colours are: Yellow (Easiest), Green (Easy), Blue (Medium), and Purple (Hardest).

Click here to play today's Connections puzzle!

Connections hint: Today's Connections words

Below you'll find various hints for today's Connections. Each of the below hints will make it progressively easier for you to solve today's puzzle. First we'll reveal the words in today's Connections, followed by our Connections hint for each group. Then we'll reveal one word inside each group, followed by the groups themselves; and finally, at the bottom of this page, we'll reveal the answers to today's Connections puzzle. Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

• BLOW
• CHEAP
• CRACK
• EARP
• LUMP
• PADRE
• PAIR
• PARE
• PEAR
• PÈRE
• POP
• RED
• ROYAL
• SPLIT
• TWIN
• WIKI

Connections hint for Monday 18th May

Here are your Connections hints for today:

• Yellow hint: Same word, different story.
• Green hint: Breaking point.
• Blue hint: Team members.
• Purple hint: Fruity rearrangements.
• Extra hint 1: One set relies on pronunciation.
• Extra hint 2: The letters that make up the words in one set need to be rearranged.

If you need a bit more help, tap the spoiler text below to reveal one word belonging to each group:

• Yellow: Pear
• Green: Pop
• Blue: Twin
• Purple: Earp

Spoiler warning! Today's Connections groups are revealed just below!

Connections hints: All of today's Connections groups

If you need an even bigger clue to figure out today's Connections puzzle, below we'll reveal the four correct Connections groups - the themes which link together each set of four words in the Connections grid.

Here are the Connections groups for today:

• Yellow: Homophones
• Green: Rupture
• Blue: MLB Player
• Purple: Fruit Anagrams

Now that you know the themes for the various different Connections in today's puzzle, see if you can solve it! If not, check below for the full answer.

Spoiler warning! Today's Connections answer lies ahead!

Connections answer today

Here is the answer to today's Connections puzzle on Monday, 18th May:

• Yellow: Homophones (Pair, Pare, Pear, Pére)
• Green: Rupture (Blow, Crack, Pop, Split)
• Blue: MLB Player (Padre, Red, Royal, Twin)
• Purple: Fruit Anagrams (Cheap, Earp, Lump, Wiki)

Well, it's safe to say that the NYT did not hold back just because it's Monday. This was one of the hardest puzzles I've done in a while! First of all, we had a sports category. That automatically means I'm in for some mindless pacing, and my carpet is getting very sick of me forming a game trail in my living room.

Then we had anagrams, my second archenemy! It's hard enough to figure out Connections with the real words. Once I start having to create new words out of the ones provided, you can practically hear my brain sizzling. It was exhilarating to figure out, though, and it's safe to say my brain is ready to take on the week!

Congratulations if you got today's Connections answer right, with or without the help of our handy hints above! And if you didn't succeed today, don't worry - a new Connections puzzle is released every day at midnight, so you can try again tomorrow, just like with Wordle!