NYT Connections today hints and answers — Wednesday, February 5 (#605)

NYTimes Connections
(Image credit: Future)

Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on February 5 for puzzle #605 are a decimal point harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.3 out of 5.

Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers so you can keep your Connections streak going. And if the clues aren't enough, you'll find all four answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words.

Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #604, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #605. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.

Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it

Get today's NYT Connections clues and answers for today's puzzle #605 on February 5.

(Image credit: New York Times)

Unlike our guide to today's Wordle answer, where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category's difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you've made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.

Today's Connections words are: Fan, Flag, William, Tell, Bonus, Banknote, Cut, Deal, Beak, Salary, Invoice, Giveaway, Insurance, Sign, Shuffle, and Vacation.

If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:

  • 🟨 Yellow: Parts of a compensation package
  • 🟩 Green: Indication
  • 🟦 Blue: Things to do with a deck of cards
  • 🟪 Purple: What "bill" might refer to

These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.

Here's a larger hint: Signs point to bills in a package of cards.

Today's Connections answers

So, what are today's Connections answers for game #605?

Drumroll, please...

  • 🟨 Parts of a compensation package: Bonus, insurance, salary, vacation
  • 🟩 Indication: Flag, giveaway, sign, tell
  • 🟦 Things to do with a deck of cards: Cut, deal, fan, shuffle
  • 🟪 What "bill" might refer to: Banknote, beak, invoice, William

Feels like the Connections has a gambling theme this week. I noticed when I saw cut and deal and thought cards. Shuffle and fan were quick finds from there.

From there I was starting at William trying to see what it fit with when "Bill" popped into my mind. That clicked it and banknote, beak and invoice followed soon after.

For some reason, green and yellow were not clicking for me.

Eventually, flag and sign hit it. Tell and giveaway seemed to fit unlocking green.

Which left bonus, insurance, salary and vacation for yellow. Not sure why that was hiding from me but that's how it went today.

Yesterday's Connections answers

  • 🟨 Conserve: Keep, preserve, save, store
  • 🟩 Smooth using friction: Buff, file, grind, sand
  • 🟦 Sports gambling terms: Favorite, parlay, spread, under
  • 🟪 Words before "fingers": Butter, chicken, lady, sticky

Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #604, which had a difficulty rating of 3.2 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.

I probably watch too many sports that have been inundated with gambling crap, thus I saw the blue category with favorite, parlay, spread and under pretty quickly.

I spotted keep, preserve, save and store for yellow but saved it for the last.

From there I saw lady and thought fingers, which lead to butter fingers, sticky fingers and chicken fingers.

My wrap up was the green category with buff, file, grind and sand.

Scott Younker
West Coast Reporter

Scott Younker is the West Coast Reporter at Tom’s Guide. He covers all the lastest tech news. He’s been involved in tech since 2011 at various outlets and is on an ongoing hunt to build the easiest to use home media system. When not writing about the latest devices, you are more than welcome to discuss board games or disc golf with him. 

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