Looking for clues for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on October 13 for puzzle #855 are a bit 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, #854, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #855. 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
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: Pandora's Box, Lucky Stiff, Live Music, Golden Fleece, Good Riddance, Happy Hour, Hornet's Nest, Comic Con, Karaoke, American Hustle, Sayonara, Minefield, Finally, Can of Worms, Trivia Night, and About Time
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Metaphors for potentially volatile situations
- 🟩 Green: Bar events
- 🟦 Blue: Words after a welcome departure
- 🟪 Purple: Ending with synonyms for "swindle"
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: Grab a pint, brush up on your word play, and don't let the door hit ya.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #855?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Metaphors for potentially volatile situations: Can of Worms, Hornet's Nest, Minefield, Pandora's Box
- 🟩 Bar events: Happy Hour, Karaoke, Live Music, Trivia Night
- 🟦 Words after a welcome departure: About Time, Finally, Good Riddance, Sayonara
- 🟪 Ending with synonyms for 'swindle': American Hustle, Comic Con, Golden Fleece, Lucky Stiff
I immediately smelled something fishy with so many two-word clues, and that suspicion drove me straight through the yellow category in record time with Can of Worms, Hornet's Nest, Minefield, and Pandora's Box.
Green was easy enough to piece together with phrases I've seen on the marquees of countless neighborhood watering holes: Happy Hour, Karaoke, Live Music, and Trivia Night.
With Karaoke out of the way, I was eyeing the only other Japanese word on today's board: Sayonara. Another glance around the board, and Good Riddance caught my attention as something else to mutter under your breath when a real piece of work finally gets the hint and leaves. Finally and About Time rounded out the rest of the category.
Today's purple connection is a particularly fun bit of word play that went sailing over my head: American Hustle, Comic Con, Golden Fleece, and Lucky Stiff. That'll teach me for taking these clues too literally.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 For all time: Eternal, Everlasting, Forever, Permanent
- 🟩 Establishes: Begins, Institutes, Launches, Pioneers
- 🟦 Birds: Kite, Robin, Swallow, Swift
- 🟪 Happy __: Days, Ending, Returns, Trails
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #854, which had a difficulty rating of 1.8 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
With all the Taylor Swift drama going on right now, I was tempted to think of the singer at today's clue. But once I saw Robin, I figured that was probably the trap the Connections Crew intended. I went bird-watching and picked up Kite and Swallow for the blue category.
After that, I solved yellow with Eternal, Everlasting, Forever, and Permanent.
Then I was stumped for a bit with the remaining clues. Pioneers made me think of a sports team, but when I couldn't find any other potential mascots, I dropped that line of thinking. I started looking for synonyms instead, and that led me to Begins, Institutes, and Launches for green.
That left purple as today's rote fill with Days, Ending, Returns, and Trails. I've never heard the phrase "Happy Returns" in my life, so it's little wonder I was so confused by what the connection could be.
Connections tips — how to win at Connections
There are two ways to play Connections, get the answers as you solve them or solve for the hardest group, Purple, first.
For either playstyle, the best tip I can give is to not be afraid of the shuffle button, especially if you’ve solved a set but you’re certain it isn’t the Purple group. You can shuffle the grid until your solved quartet is in a somewhat staked off area.
For the purple group, you can expect to see a handful of category types: words missing a letter, homophones, words with specific suffixes or prefixes, and [blank] word (or word [blank]). There are others, but this is a majority of what you’ll see. It can help to look for purple connections through one of those lenses.
If you’re not hunting for purple specifically, then the best advice I have is to look for smaller connections. For example, Riddler and Joker are Batman villains. Once you’ve grouped that duo together it’s easier to find another set.
Finally, watch out for traps. Occasionally, the Connections makers like to throw in a set of words that should seem very obvious to most people. But picking them can give you a strike, something you want to save for when you aren’t really sure between a couple of clues.
The tricky bit is that sometimes the very obvious foursome is actually one of the answers (usually the yellow or green levels).
One way to work around this is to note the four clues you think are an obvious set. Highlight them by selecting the words but don’t hit submit. From there take a second look around the grid to see if anything else stands out to you.
Often these super obvious sets are actually individually spread out between the four groups. So, if you see Wick, Neo, Ted and Mnemonic, you might immediately think of Keanu Reeves movies, but it's a trick. Instead, use the individual words as launching points to discover other connections.
If you're new to the game you should also take a look at our How to play Connections guide.
Got some thoughts about today's puzzle you want to share? Email us at scott.younker@futurenet.com or alyse.stanley@futurenet.com to get in touch.
