Need a hint for NYT Connections #328? The Saturday, May 4, 2024, puzzle is archived, and this guide offers progressively stronger clues before the full answers. Stop at the section you need if you still want to solve it yourself.
Need a hint for NYT Connections #328? The puzzle dated Saturday, May 4, 2024 is archived, so this guide gives progressively stronger clues before revealing the complete answer grid. Stop whenever you have enough help to finish it yourself.
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Important date note: this is the May 4, 2024 game—not a current May 4 puzzle. The board contains 16 words that must be divided into four groups of four. Yellow is the easiest category, followed by green and blue, while purple is usually the most difficult. Overlapping meanings are intentional, so a word that seems to fit one group may be a trap.
Hints for Connections #328
Here are the clues in order from least revealing to most revealing. The category names are withheld at first so you can still solve the puzzle.
#1 Best Overall
Yellow hint
Look for four verbs meaning to enjoy, appreciate, or take pleasure in something.
Green hint
Four of the words can pad, qualify, or soften ordinary conversation. They may appear as hesitation markers or habitual speech.
Blue hint
Think about the hardware inside a lock, rather than the lock’s outer casing.
Purple hint
Say the remaining words aloud. Each one sounds like a familiar unit of measurement, although its spelling is different.
The 16 words in the May 4, 2024, puzzle
Before checking the answers, the complete board was:
SPRING, LOVE, PIN, WELL, FANCY, JEWEL, LIKE, CARROT, CYLINDER, HURTS, LITERALLY, RELISH, UM, OM, SAVOR, TUMBLER
Spoilers: Connections #328 answers
Stop here if you do not want the full solution. The four intended groups are:
| Color | Category | Words |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | ENJOY | FANCY, LOVE, RELISH, SAVOR |
| Green | FILLER WORDS | LIKE, LITERALLY, UM, WELL |
| Blue | COMPONENTS OF A LOCK | CYLINDER, PIN, SPRING, TUMBLER |
| Purple | HOMOPHONES OF UNITS OF MEASURE | CARROT, HURTS, JEWEL, OM |
Why each group works
Yellow: ENJOY — FANCY, LOVE, RELISH, SAVOR
Each word can function as a verb expressing appreciation or pleasure. You can fancy or desire something, love it, relish it, or savor it. The connection is based on meaning rather than a shared phrase or spelling pattern.
Green: FILLER WORDS — LIKE, LITERALLY, UM, WELL
In the right context, all four can serve as conversational fillers or discourse markers. Someone might say “um” while hesitating, begin a response with “well,” use “like” habitually, or add “literally” as conversational padding. The category does not mean that every use of these words is a filler; each also has important ordinary meanings.
Blue: COMPONENTS OF A LOCK — CYLINDER, PIN, SPRING, TUMBLER
These are parts associated with lock hardware. A cylinder houses the mechanism, while pins, springs, and tumblers are involved in the mechanism that allows a lock to open with the correct key. Spring and pin are especially deceptive because they have many common meanings outside locksmithing.
Purple: HOMOPHONES OF UNITS OF MEASURE — CARROT, HURTS, JEWEL, OM
Reading the four words aloud reveals the intended connections:
- CARROT sounds like carat, a unit used for the mass of gemstones.
- HURTS sounds like hertz, the unit used to measure frequency.
- JEWEL sounds like joule, the unit used to measure energy.
- OM sounds like ohm, the unit used to measure electrical resistance.
This is the trickiest group because the board uses ordinary spellings that only reveal the measurement connection when spoken aloud.
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How to solve a puzzle with overlaps like this one
- Start with the most constrained idea. On this board, the measurement homophones become recognizable once you test the unusual-looking words by sound.
- Remove a confirmed group before judging the rest. Leaving those four words in place makes the remaining overlaps harder to see.
- Look for concrete object categories. CYLINDER, PIN, SPRING, and TUMBLER become more convincing when considered as lock hardware rather than as isolated everyday words.
- Separate meaning from function. FANCY, LOVE, RELISH, and SAVOR describe enjoyment, whereas LIKE, LITERALLY, UM, and WELL can perform a conversational function.
- Test all four words together. A possible pair or trio is not enough. Connections requires four words sharing the intended relationship, and the game deliberately plants plausible alternatives.
The puzzle has one intended solution, even when a word appears to fit multiple categories. That ambiguity is part of the design: the winning move is usually to find the group that explains all four words most precisely and leaves a clean set of 12 behind.
Want more Connections puzzles?
If you enjoy the category-matching format away from the screen, the official Connections puzzle book collects more than 100 puzzles of wit and wordplay. Check the current edition, price, availability, and retailer details before buying, since those details can change.
Frequently Asked Questions
What were the answers to NYT Connections #328?
The four categories were ENJOY; FILLER WORDS; COMPONENTS OF A LOCK; and HOMOPHONES OF UNITS OF MEASURE.
When was Connections #328 published?
The puzzle numbered #328 was published on Saturday, May 4, 2024. This guide refers to that archived game, not a current May 4 puzzle.
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The Bottom Line
The May 4, 2024, NYT Connections puzzle was #328. Its groups were ENJOY, FILLER WORDS, COMPONENTS OF A LOCK, and HOMOPHONES OF UNITS OF MEASURE.
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