Today's puzzle is on the hunt for famous Toms.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for October 8 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,215. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,214, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
What is Connections
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.
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.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Today's Connection Grid and Words
- Foolhardy
- Minds
- Thanks
- Stooges
- Best
- Wishes
- Regards
- Eclipse
- Cheers
- Mulholland
- Respects
- Strikes
- Top
- Autocruise
- Heeds
- Surpass
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Obey
- 🟩 Green: Beat
- 🟦 Blue: Tres
- 🟪 Purple: Famous
Today's Connections Group Hints
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Follows, as rules
- 🟩 Green: Outdo
- 🟦 Blue: Things that come in threes
- 🟪 Purple: Ending in actors named Tom
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.
Today's Connections answers
The Connections answers on October 8 for puzzle #1,215 are easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.3 out of 5.
- 🟨 Follows, as rules: Heeds, minds, regards, respects
- 🟩 Outdo: Best, eclipse, surpass, top
- 🟦 Things that come in threes: Cheers, stooges, strikes, wishes
- 🟪 Ending in actors named Tom: Autocruise, foolhardy, mulholland, thanks
I was looking for trios based on the Stooges when I spotted Autocruise and thought Tom Cruise. That led to Mulholland and then foolhardy. It took a second to get to thanks but we got there.
For some reason, I forgot about the threes when I snagged best, eclipse, surpass and top to set the green set.
I returned to the threes with stooges, cheers, strikes and wishes.
Which left the following words of heeds, minds, regards and respects as the final four.
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Save for later: Bank, squirrel, stash, store
- 🟩 Kinds of buns: Cinnamon, hamburger, hot dog, sticky
- 🟦 Greek numerical prefixes: Dichotomy, monologue, tetracycline, trident
- 🟪 Best ____ Tony awards: Choreography, musical, orchestrations, play
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,214, which had a difficulty rating of 1.9 out of 5.
Connections can be obvious when it drops larger words like tetracycline. Monologue is what clued me into the numerical set and then it was just hunting to get to trident and dichotomy.
I spotted the theater words but didn't trust them for the purple set, which is why I put in the buns of cinnamon, sticky, hot dog and hamburger. Color me surprised by the green.
With that out of the way, I returned to the theatre with musical, play, orchestrations, choreography.
Which leaves the cache words bank: squirrel, stash, and store.
