Today's puzzle is on the easier end.
Find our guide to New York Times Connections answers and hints for November 5 below.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #1,243. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #1,242, 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
- Raindrop
- Rose
- Whisker
- Kitten
- Gig
- Pear
- Spike
- Narcissus
- Wedge
- Run
- Lotus
- Uvula
- Brando
- Anemone
- Speedbag
- Platform
We have the Connections categories below, but here's a hint without the actual titles. Try this out:
- 🟨 Yellow: Shoes.
- 🟩 Green: Floral
- 🟦 Blue: Falling
- 🟪 Purple: Faded
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: Kinds of heels
- 🟩 Green: Flowers
- 🟦 Blue: Teardrop-shaped things
- 🟪 Purple: Liquors with last letters changed
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 November 5 for puzzle #1,243 are much easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 1.3 out of 5.
- 🟨 Triangular prisms with a sharp edge: Doorstop, flatiron building, pie slice, wedge
- 🟩 Words after "do not" on a care label: Bleach, iron, tumble dry, wring
- 🟦 Move idly, with "around": Loll, poke, putter, shuffle
- 🟪 Fire____: Cracker, fly, wood, works
Often, as I glance at the grid, two or three words will pop out to me, and I'll have an idea of where I want to go. Today, I locked in on lotus from the start.
It quickly led to rose and then anemone. I forgot that daffodils are also called narcissus, but that word stuck out so much that I figured it had to be a flower. Good pub trivia question.
Raindrop and speedbag got me on the teardrop idea. Uvula came next, and I wrapped it up with pear.
Perhaps I could have put in the purple next, but I saw kitten and thought heel, which led to spike, wedge, then platform.
This left the liquors as my final four: brando (brandy), gig (gin), run (rum), whisker (whiskey).
Yesterday's Connections answers
- 🟨 Triangular prisms with a sharp edge: Doorstop, flatiron building, pie slice, wedge
- 🟩 Words after "do not" on a care label: Bleach, iron, tumble dry, wring
- 🟦 Move idly, with "around": Loll, poke, putter, shuffle
- 🟪 Fire____: Cracker, fly, wood, works
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #1,242 which had a difficulty rating of 2.4 out of 5.
I spotted the golf club trap and somehow got it in my mind to work backwards from the green. So I started with putter.
It took a minute for putter around to hit me, but that opened up the blue set with shuffle, loll and poke.
Next, I debated but decided the wedge was shorter. Which got me to the triangles with Flatiron building, pie slice and doorstop.
That was followed by iron. Which got me to laundry with bleach, tumble dry and wring.
This left the wood as the final four with firecracker, firefly, firewood and fireworks.
