Today's NYT Connections hints and answers, Monday May 12

Need a hint for today's Connections on Monday, 12th May? Connecting the right words isn't easy, especially when the NYT throws in some distractions to mislead you. With the help of this Connections guide, you won't fall for it.

Grab a few hints and sneak peeks from the list below, and we'll secure your victory streak. Good luck!

In this guide:

• How to play Connections
• Connections hint for Monday 12th May
• What are today's Connections groups?
• What are today's Connections answers?

Here are the 16 Connections words for today:

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".

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 for Monday 12th May

Here are your Connections hints for today:

• Yellow: Look for cash.
• Green: These words are similar to a U-turn.
• Blue: Think of the web.
• Purple: You would use your face to do this.
• Extra hint 1: Every group contains one letter starting with 'C'.
• Extra hint 2: Bank, purse, and ATM are in different groups.

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

• Yellow:Wallet
• Green:Bounce
• Blue:Hit
• Purple:Curl

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

What are 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: Places To Find Paper Money
• Green: Rebound
• Blue: Things Tracked By Web Analytics
• Purple: Things You Can Do With Your Lips

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!

What is today's Connections answer?

Here is the answer to today's Connections puzzle on Monday, 12th May:

• Yellow: Places To Find Paper Money (Atm, Cash Register, Tip Jar, Wallet)
• Green: Rebound (Bank, Bounce, Carom, Ricochet)
• Blue: Things Tracked By Web Analytics (Click, Hit, Page View, Visit)
• Purple: Things You Can Do With Your Lips (Curl, Pucker, Purse, Smack)

I absolutely loved this Connections edition. By adding so many distractions and false matches, you really need to think about every group and how they're different from each other - no easy-peasy ways to solve yellow and green.

I'll readily admit that I didn't grasp the money-related themes at first; my first tentative theme was 'ATM, bank, and cash register'. My second tentative theme was 'purse, wallet, and tip jar'. I was thinking of 'places to get money' and 'places to hold money' respectively.

Not ready to give up yet, I focused on 'curl' and 'pucker' first, realised it was about lips, and solved the purple theme. This saved my Connections puzzle today, as it ruled out 'purse', severing the false connection with 'wallet'. I then moved on to blue, then green, and only then the yellow theme.

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!