Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today’s NYT Connections hints and answers, here’s what you missed on Wednesday:
ForbesNYT Connections Hints Today: Thursday, October 23 Clues And Answers (#865)By Kris HoltForbesNYT Connections: Today’s Answers Explained (Thursday, October 23, #865)By Kris Holt
Hey there, Connectors! The weekend is right around the corner, so let’s make sure you get there with your Connections streak in one piece.
I’m gonna double up on recommendations today, since I was inspired by a couple of things in the Connections grid (no spoilers yet, I promise!).
Here’s a song I love very much that I never thought to include as a recommendation until now. I’m doing so thanks to one of today’s words.
“Heyday” by Mic Christopher is a lovely, optimistic song that’s tinged with tragedy. It was released posthumously, as Christopher died in 2001 at the age of 32 following an apparent accident.
It’s truly sad for anyone to pass away so young, let alone such a talented musician. His only album, Skylarkin’, is heartfelt and lovely. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear Christopher’s friends, The Frames, play a snippet of this song live a couple of times, but the original recording is still my favorite version:
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Friday, October 24 are coming right up. Let’s get rolling!
NYT Connections Hints – How To Play
Connections is a free New York Times daily word game that you can play on the NYT’s website or Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the Connections archive, which includes every previous game.
Connections presents you with a grid of 16 words (sometimes phrases, symbols or numbers). The aim is to arrange them into four groups of four. You don’t know how they hit together or what the category for each group is: that’s what you have to figure out.
There’s only one correct solution and there are often red herrings. You can guess incorrectly three times. A fourth wrong guess, and it’s game over.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to deduce, followed by blue, green and purple. Often, the yellow and green groups have synonyms, the blues have cultural references and the purples have some kind of wordplay involved. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Be ready for curveballs – part of the fun of Connections is in how the NYT shakes things up to keep you on your toes.
As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends using an emoji-based grid. The game tracks your progress too.
Many players take pride in having long win streaks or getting a reverse rainbow – correctly guessing the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order with no mistakes. That adds an extra little challenge.
NYT Connections Hints – Today’s Word List
Scroll slowly! I’ll first give you a list of today’s words, then a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll tell you the category names, followed by the full answers.
Today’s 16 words are…
BAYWATCHHIGHLIGHTRAINBOWHERRINGPRIMESUNSETBOLDPEACOCKCOOTIEHEYDAYKALEIDOSCOPEUNDERLINEZENITHKINGPINSTRIKETHROUGHPINNACLENYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
🟨 Yellow group — hopefully this is yet to come for you🟩 Green group — make symbols stand out or make them irrelevant🟦 Blue group — like tropical plants, swatch wheels and much of Dali’s work🟪 Purple group — right about that style advice!NYT Connections Hints – One Answer Per Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one answer for each group.
Here we go…
🟨 Yellow group — PINNACLE🟩 Green group — HIGHLIGHT🟦 Blue group — PEACOCK🟪 Purple group — KINGPINNYT Connections Hints – Groups/Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
🟨 Yellow group — best years🟩 Green group — things you can do to text🟦 Blue group — things known for being colorful 🟪 Purple group — ending in accessories NYT Connections Answers
Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.
This is your last chance to look away.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
🟨 Yellow group — best years (HEYDAY, PINNACLE, PRIME, ZENITH)🟩 Green group — things you can do to text (BOLD, HIGHLIGHT, STRIKETHROUGH, UNDERLINE)🟦 Blue group — things known for being colorful (KALEIDOSCOPE, PEACOCK, RAINBOW, SUNSET)🟪 Purple group — ending in accessories (BAYWATCH, COOTIE, HERRING, KINGPIN)
After evading the red herring of, well, “red” HERRING and UNDERLINE, the greens jumped out at me. I use those all of the time. All of the time.
COOTIE then stood out to me. It didn’t really make sense with anything else on the board, so I looked at parts of it. From there, I realized it ended in “tie” and could go with BAY-WATCH and KING-PIN. Alas, I got caught out by a red herring as I incorrectly included RAIN-BOW with my guess. I swapped that out for HER-RING to get the purples.
From there, the yellows became clear (HIGHLIGHT could have gone with those too). That left the slightly tricky blues to wrap up my 237th win in a row.
How did you get on today? Here’s my grid for this one:
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟪🟦🟪🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟦🟦🟦🟦
As much as I’d love to put together an Answers Explained for this one – and to do one every day – I’m wiped. Sorry, folks. (I’ll note that there was another red herring with PRIME and PEACOCK, which are both video streaming services in the U.S.)
Would you like chat with some lovely folks about today’s game? Want to hang out with others who enjoy Connections and other word games? You’re more than welcome to join our community on Discord. Expect fun GIFs, photos from Connectors’ travels and all kinds of other fun stuff.
I’ll be back here on Monday for more Connections fun. In the meantime, you can read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.
P.S. Baywatch was an absolute phenomenon in the ’90s. It holds the record for the largest audience for a TV series with a weekly audience of 1.1 billion viewers around the world – numbers that seem utterly unachievable these days given how fragmented the cultural ecosystem is now. I guess people really liked to watch beautiful actors run across the beach.
Baywatch had an absolute all-timer of a theme song for most of its run as well. Like the show itself, “I’m Always Here” by Jimi Jamison is cheesy, but it’s a cracker. Jamison had a fantastic voice. I think this is just the right kind of feel-good song we need to take us into the weekend:
I admit I was tempted to go with the Baywatch theme, but this just felt right.
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
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