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If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Thursday, October 23, 2025, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Along the way, I’ll explain the meanings of the trickier words and we’ll learn how everything fits together. Beware, there are spoilers below for October 23, NYT Connections #865! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game. If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. (If you play Wordle, Strands, or Quordle, check out our hints for those games, too.) Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And farther down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need! The category types in today’s Connections puzzle Here are spoiler-free hints that describe the type of each category in today’s Connections: Yellow category - Synonyms. Green category - Synonyms. Blue category - Related nouns. Purple category - Fill in the blank. Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Yellow category - Old-timey words of approval. Green category - What a gambler hopes to get. Blue category - They’re usually hit or thrown. Purple category - They go with a word for a form of portable storage. BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle! We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.) A heads up about the tricky parts KITTY, DOGGY, BIRDIE, and DUCKY all belong to different categories. A BIRDIE is also called a shuttlecock. “That’s SWELL” is something you might say when receiving good news. KITTY is a word for a communal bit of money. What are the categories in today’s Connections? Yellow: PEACHY Green: WINNINGS Blue: PIECES OF OLYMPIC SPORTS EQUIPMENT Purple: ___ BAG DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below. What are the yellow words in today’s Connections? The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is PEACHY and the words are: DANDY, DUCKY, FINE, SWELL. What are the green words in today’s Connections? The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is WINNINGS and the words are: KITTY, POT, PRIZE, PURSE. What are the blue words in today’s Connections? The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is PIECES OF OLYMPIC SPORTS EQUIPMENT and the words are: BALL, BIRDIE, PUCK, STONE. What are the purple words in today’s Connections? The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is ___ BAG and the words are: DOGGY, GO, MIXED, SWAG. How I solved today’s Connections PUCK and BIRDIE could go together as sports items (PUCK = hockey and BIRDIE = badminton). Oh, there’s BALL, too. Not sure about a fourth yet. Maybe STONE? SWELL and DANDY could be old-timey expressions. Maybe PRIZE, SWAG, PURSE, and POT go together as words for winnings. “One away.” I think SWAG doesn’t fit. I think I remember from a previous puzzle that KITTY is a word for communal funds. 🟩 DOGGY, DUCKY, and BIRDIE could go together as kid-ish ways to say animals, but I don’t think that’s a category. DOGGY could go with “bag” to describe leftovers from a restaurant. MIXED, SWAG, and GO (as in a backpack full of emergency supplies) could also go with “bag.” 🟪 I’ll try STONE with BIRDIE, BALL, and PUCK. 🟦 That means DUCKY is the one that goes with SWELL, FINE, and DANDY. I’ve never heard DUCKY used in that way. 🟨 Connections Puzzle #865 🟩🟪🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 How to play Connections I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules: First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Games app (formerly the Crossword app). You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on). Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again. You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed. How to win Connections The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things. If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either. Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!
