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Spoiler warning: The hints below start gently, but the full solution follows. This is The New York Times Connections puzzle #704 for Thursday, May 15, 2025—not the May 14 puzzle, which was #703.
Hints for Connections #704
Try these nudges before looking at the categories or answers. The group hints, as published by TechRadar, are:
- Yellow: Trust the process.
- Green: It covers mountains.
- Blue: Partial names of famous scores.
- Purple: Precede each word with a word that rhymes with “meal.”
Category names
- Yellow: RATIONALE
- Green: TYPES OF SNOW
- Blue: LAST WORDS OF FAMOUS OPERA TITLES
- Purple: REAL ___
Full answers for May 15
Connections asks players to sort 16 words into four groups of four. The color labels indicate the groups’ difficulty, while wordplay can make a connection less obvious than a straightforward definition.
| Category | Words | Why they fit |
|---|---|---|
| RATIONALE | BASIS, FOUNDATION, GROUNDS, REASON | Each can mean a reason or underlying justification. |
| TYPES OF SNOW | CRUST, ICE, POWDER, SLUSH | Each names a snow or snow-like surface condition. |
| LAST WORDS OF FAMOUS OPERA TITLES | BESS, BUTTERFLY, FLUTE, SEVILLE | They complete Porgy and Bess, Madame Butterfly, The Magic Flute, and The Barber of Seville. |
| REAL ___ | DEAL, ESTATE, MADRID, WORLD | Add REAL before each word to make the phrases Real Deal, real estate, Real Madrid, and real world. |
Why the opera group is easy to misread
The blue set is based on the final word in each opera title, not on characters, composers, or kinds of opera. The four endings are BESS, BUTTERFLY, FLUTE, and SEVILLE.
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Play the puzzle
You can find Connections on the NYT Games site, which offers the game on desktop and mobile. For this grid, the complete word bank was FLUTE, MADRID, GROUNDS, ICE, ESTATE, POWDER, SEVILLE, FOUNDATION, BUTTERFLY, WORLD, REASON, CRUST, SLUSH, BASIS, BESS, and DEAL.
Quick Recap
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- Two teams race to identify their agents from a 5×5 grid, guided by a spymaster who knows each card’s identity
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