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 Sunday:
Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to the start of a new week. I hope you had a terrific weekend.
Regular readers will know this already (and if you’re a newcomer, welcome!), but I love to get the Monday editions of this column started with an upbeat song. I just want you to smile and move around a little. You’ll feel better for it, trust me.
I really like The Wombats, I love Huey Lewis & The News “The Power Of Love” and I adore Triple J’s Like a Version series, in which an artist performs a cover of another song (as well as one of their own). Smush all three of those things together, and you have a pretty neat cover of that track:
Let’s double up with a live version of one of my favorite Wombats songs. This is so much fun. I love the positive energy here:
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Monday, October 20 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…
- K
- POP
- DEMON
- HUNTER
- COMPLEX
- AS
- A
- CENTAUR
- BE
- BIG BEAR
- BUGBEAR
- UNI
- I
- HANG-UP
- LYRE
- CAPRI
NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — a scourge or hardship
- 🟩 Green group — written in the stars
- 🟦 Blue group — you’ve got all the elements for a perfect game today, I can feel it
- 🟪 Purple group — like candy and dent
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 — COMPLEX
- 🟩 Green group — BIG BEAR
- 🟦 Blue group — K
- 🟪 Purple group — CAPRI
NYT Connections Hints – Groups/Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — affliction
- 🟩 Green group — represented by constellations
- 🟦 Blue group — periodic table symbols
- 🟪 Purple group — ____corn
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 — affliction (BUGBEAR, COMPLEX, DEMON, HANG-UP)
- 🟩 Green group — represented by constellations (BIG BEAR, CENTAUR, HUNTER, LYRE)
- 🟦 Blue group — periodic table symbols (AS, BE, I, K)
- 🟪 Purple group — ____corn (A, CAPRI, POP, UNI)
Okay, that’s a fun reference to KPop Demon Hunters, which has been an absolute phenomenon this year. I kinda like the sentence “complex as a centaur” on the second line too.
The yellows were straightforward enough for me to get started with. That took care of the first group.
From there, I thought there might be something in CENTAUR and UNIcorn, but only one half of the latter word was actually there. That clued me into there possibly being a group of -corn words alongside A, POP and CAPRI. That’s the only thing that made sense to me. And hey, I got the purples.
I thought the remaining long words might be constellations, since I knew of BIG BEAR and HUNTER. So I took a shot and got the greens.
That left the blues, which I figured had to be letters representing elements. K for potassium is the only one I knew, since I never studied chemistry.
Tough, but very fun one there! This is the kind of grid that made me love this game in the first place. I dug the interplay between CENTAUR and UNI(corn) as well as the fact that CAPRIcornus is a constellation. Some really nice interweaving between today’s groups.
Somehow, I got a perfect game today, despite knowing very little about constellations and the periodic table. That brings my streak up to 233rd wins in a row. How did you get on?
Here’s my grid for today:
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟦🟦🟦🟦
Want to know more about how everything fits together? Let’s explore today’s game in more depth in my NYT Connections Answers Explained column. (Check my author page to read the column if that link doesn’t work for you.)
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.
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Tuesday’s game if you need them.
P.S. I mean what else could I possibly go with for today’s song recommendation given today’s meta theme? Have a golden week:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more NYT Connections hints and help with other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.
