How today’s NYT Connections answers and red herrings fit together.
getty
Note: Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today right here.
ForbesNYT Connections Hints Today: Thursday, October 23 Clues And Answers (#865)By Kris Holt
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s NYT Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.
I’m going to assume that a) you know how to play NYT Connections and b) you’ve already beaten today’s game. If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email, Bluesky or Discord. I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.
We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning.
Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Thursday, October 23:
Today’s NYT Connections Answers ExplainedNYT Connections – Yellow Group
🟨 peachy (DANDY, DUCKY, FINE, SWELL)
DANDY is a bit of an old-fashioned term (albeit one I use occasionally) to indicate that everything is good. You could say the same for FINE. Along with “it’s good,” FINE is about as high a compliment as you’ll get from many of my fellow Scots.
I am fond of using SWELL in this context as well. DUCKY was a new one to me. Again, that’s an old-fashioned expression used to describe something as “excellent or very pleasant,” per the Cambridge Dictionary.
NYT Connections – Green Group
🟩 winnings (KITTY, POT, PRIZE, PURSE)
POT typically refers to the prize available in a hand of poker. KITTY is similar in that sense. It refers to “a fund in a poker game made up of contributions from each pot,” according to Merriam-Webster.
PURSE most commonly refers to the reward for the winner in combat sports. And PRIZE is pretty self-explanatory.
NYT Connections – Blue Group
🟦 pieces of Olympic sports equipment (BALL, BIRDIE, PUCK, STONE)
Lots of Olympic sports use a BALL, from field hockey, and baseball to soccer (it’s called football, actually) and rugby. Side note: I cannot believe cricket is going to be back in the Olympics. I know it’s a very popular sport, but it’s not for me at all.
Anyway, PUCK and STONE both refer to Winter Olympics sports: ice hockey and curling. As for BIRDIE, that’s another name for the shuttlecock in badminton. It’s also a golf thing, but that’s not super relevant here.
NYT Connections – Purple Group
🟪 _____ bag (DOGGY, GO, MIXED, SWAG)
A DOGGY bag is another name for a container you’d use to bring leftover food from the restaurant home. The notional idea was that the food would be given to pets, but it was always more likely that the diner would just have the food themselves later.
A GO bag is a pre-packed bag one has ready to “go” at a moment’s notice in case of an emergency. This could be for something like a natural disaster or preparing for a hospital stay when one is going into labor. GO bag can to a survival kit more generally too.
MIXED bag is an expression meaning that some things are good and others are bad:
How did your performance review go?I got some praise and there are things I have to work on. It was a mixed bag.
SWAG bag is another name for goodie bag. You know that ridiculous batch of freebies that Oscar nominees and presenters get every year with tens of thousands of dollars worth of stuff? That’s a swag bag.
NYT Connections – Red Herrings
Connections often has some red herrings. Let’s take a look at today’s (assuming I spotted any).
SSPL via Getty Images
There was a pretty clear red herring today, I thought. DUCKY, KITTY, BIRDIE and DOGGY are all child-like ways to refer to certain animals.
If you’d like to chat about today’s game of NYT Connections with a group of exceptionally cool and lovely people and also me, you can do just that in our Discord community. We’d love to have you join us.
I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers tomorrow, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes.