Today's NYT Connections: Hints To Help Solve Today's Game, June 2, 2024

Today's Connections has many words that may make it difficult to spot a distinct category. Regular players know that these are called "red herrings," and you might cost you the game if you take the bait. This particular puzzle (Connections for June 2, 2024) has a difficulty rating of 2.8 out of 5, but our guide will still make it a lot easier.

If you're a new player, Connections tests your ability to spot the strongest links between a group of words — the task is to sort the 16 words into four groups of four by figuring out their common threads without making more than four mistakes.

Whether you're a seasoned player or new one, you're here because you need help solving today's puzzle, and we'll do just that. Scroll down for some subtle hints that will nudge you towards the solutions. If you don't mind spoilers, or if you can't afford another mistake, you'll find all the answers in the last section.

Each Connections puzzle features a 16-word grid from which must make four groups of words that share something in common. These categories typically involve trivia (think geography or pop culture), or semantics (think homonyms or synonyms).

Each group is color-coded according to its difficulty level. The yellow group is the easiest and most obvious connection, green and blue are medium, and purple is the trickiest of the bunch — usually super-specific, abstract themes that might leave you scratching your head even after you've figured out the answers, but that's the fun of it.

Technically, you only need to figure out three groups — the fourth will be left over after the first 12 words are eliminated. If you're finding it difficult to make a connection, you can shuffle the board to rearrange the words and make it easier to spot one.

Click on four words and hit Submit to see if you've guessed a group correctly. If you're right, those words will be removed from the board and displayed in a color-coded bar above, along with the key to the category. You might get a message telling you that you're one word away from a connection if you've selected three correct words, but it's up to you to figure out which one to swap. If you're wrong, that counts as a mistake, and you'll lose the game if you make four of those. The hints below should help you prevent that from happening.

Here are the 16 words on the grid for today's Connections #357:

• MOBILE

• FOLLOWERS

• SHOVELS

• BUFFALO

• LIKES

• INSULTS

• SHARES

• SHEEP

• APARTMENT

• BILLINGS

• PUPPETS

• OPTIONS

• EQUITY

• PHOENIX

• STOCKS

• LEMMINGS

These hints might help you sort them correctly:

1. Yellow group: Corporate stakeholder's benefits

2. Green group: You'll find all of them on a bandwagon

3. Blue group: Cities in the States

4. Purple group: The common thread is a homonym that could also be slang for "clothes"

If you're still struggling, here's a full reveal of all four categories. They might help you spot connections you couldn't see before. Here they are:

1. Yellow group: CONFORMISTS

2. Green group: COMPANY OWNERSHIP OFFERS

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3. Blue group: U.S CITIES

4. Purple group: WHAT "DIGS" MIGHT MEAN

In addition to our daily hints, there's another clue to add to your Connections toolbox for easier solving. The New York Times publishes a Connections Companion article with each puzzle, featuring a header image that cleverly hints at some categories in the day's puzzle. You'll notice that today's image is a line of people following one another and walking off a cliff illustrates the CONFORMISTS group. The jagged incline of the rock also mirrors a business graph, and one of the people on the line is holding a briefcase, both hinting at the COMPANY OWNERSHIP OFFERS group. We'll be referring to these images for guidance in the future, and we recommend you do the same.

Now, back to the puzzling matter at hand. If you're still having trouble connecting the dots, see the section below for the answer reveal. If you'd rather not have the answers handed to you, this is the point where you should stop scrolling and get the gears cranking — all the spoilers are ahead.

The answers to today's Connections puzzle (#357) are:

1. Yellow group: Conformists (FOLLOWERS, SHEEP, LEMMINGS, PUPPETS)
2. Green group: Company Ownership Offers (EQUITY, STOCKS, SHARES, OPTIONS)
3. Blue group: U.S Cities (MOBILE, PHOENIX, BUFFALO, BILLINGS)
4. Purple group: What "digs" might mean (APARTMENT, SHOVELS, INSULTS, LIKES)

There you have it! Like yesterday, the green group was our first connection today, but we fell for the trap with PHOENIX, BUFFALO, SHEEP, and LEMMINGS, thinking they would be in a category about animals. FOLLOWERS, LIKES and SHARES also kept throwing us off since they're all terms about social media engagement. The purple group eluded us till the end — we only pieced them together after solving the other three groups. That one truly needed one to do some digging. We eventually scrapped our way to the finish line with only one life left. Hopefully you made it to the finish line without as many mistakes.

We put these guides up every day, so you can check back in whenever you get stuck on a puzzle. Here are yesterday's puzzle answers if you need to catch up. We also have a Wordle guide that might help you solve those puzzles more easily, if you're still playing. Till tomorrow, adios, sayonara, ciao, farewell!