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The May 1, 2025 puzzle uses four different kinds of connections: prize money, quitting a habit, movie-camera movements, and compounds ending in “-size.” The hardest step is recognizing DOLLY as a camera verb and seeing the purple words as phrase completions rather than a shared subject.
Quick hints for Connections #690
Yellow hint
Think of what a champion, contest winner, or successful bettor might receive.
Green hint
These verbs can describe quitting or getting rid of a habit.
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Blue hint
Look for terms used to move or adjust a movie camera while filming.
Purple hint
Put the same four-letter ending after each word to create compounds meaning small or limited in size.
The 16 tiles
The grid for game #690 contains:
- SHAKE
- PURSE
- PAN
- POT
- DOLLY
- FUN
- PRIZE
- TRAVEL
- BREAK
- BITE
- KICK
- ZOOM
- DROP
- REWARD
- TILT
Connections #690 answers
| Color | Category | Words | How the connection works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | WINNINGS | POT, PRIZE, PURSE, REWARD | Each can refer to money or a benefit awarded for success, including a prize purse or a jackpot pot. |
| Green | STOP, AS A HABIT | BREAK, DROP, KICK, SHAKE | Each verb can mean quitting or abandoning a habit: break, drop, kick, or shake the habit. |
| Blue | MOVIE CAMERA VERBS | DOLLY, PAN, TILT, ZOOM | These are camera movements or shot adjustments used in filmmaking. |
| Purple | WORDS THAT PRECEDE “-SIZE” TO MEAN SMALL | BITE, FUN, POCKET, TRAVEL | They form bite-size, fun-size, pocket-size, and travel-size. |
How to solve the puzzle without spoilers
1. Secure the obvious payout group
POT, PRIZE, PURSE, and REWARD all point toward something earned after winning. “Purse” can mean the money offered in a competition, while “pot” can mean the accumulated stake or jackpot. Removing these four leaves less room for misleading interpretations.
2. Test the habit-cessation verbs
BREAK, DROP, KICK, and SHAKE become a coherent set when read as ways to quit a habit. This is a meaning-based group, but the words are broad enough to attract false matches before the payout words are removed.
3. Read DOLLY as a verb
DOLLY is the blue-group trap. It may suggest a toy, a name, or camera equipment, but in film language to dolly is to move the camera, usually along a track or similar support. PAN, TILT, and ZOOM are the other three movie-camera verbs.
4. Build the compounds for purple
The remaining words are not a topic category. Add “size” to get bite-size, fun-size, pocket-size, and travel-size. That structural wordplay is why the purple group is usually less immediately visible than the semantic groups.
Why #690 can feel tricky
- Multiple meanings: DOLLY has familiar everyday meanings that conceal its filmmaking use.
- Overlapping associations: POT, PURSE, and PRIZE can all evoke contests, while several remaining words can form everyday phrases with unrelated endings.
- Different mechanisms: Yellow and green rely mainly on meaning, blue uses technical vocabulary, and purple depends on completing compounds.
Connections allows players to shuffle the grid and can display a “one word away” warning when a proposed group is nearly correct. Four incorrect guesses end the game, so it is safer to reserve a guess until the fourth word has a specific role rather than merely sharing a loose association.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Game date and numbering
This solution is for NYT Connections game #690, published May 1, 2025. The daily puzzle changes at midnight for each time zone, so players near the date boundary may see a different day’s grid from someone elsewhere.
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