NYT Connections Hints October 21, 2025: Check Clues and Answers to Solve Today’s Puzzle Game

The New York Times has a daily word puzzle called NYT Connections which asks players to discover relationships between sixteen words and to organize the words into four groups of four words that denote a relationship or theme. Each group of four is color-coded by difficulty; green is easiest, while purple is hardest. The enjoyment and excitement of Connections stems from this challenge in logic and creativity. Some links are easier or more obvious, while others are trickier and require some lateral thinking, word association, and even the ability to see more subtle patterns and nuances that might say "oh, that's clever!"

The 21st October, 2025 NYT Connections puzzle had a nice balance of easy and trickier word associations. The green and yellow categories were not very difficult, as they dealt with more common terms; the other groups of blue and purple required more abstract ways of thinking and thinking through elimination. Those who played often reported that the hardest category ended up being the hardest for the reason of their needing to rely on a shared phrase and not on meanings directly. Overall, the 10-21 Connections puzzle represented what NYC Connections is all about - a quick daily word puzzle test of everyday wit that suggest both keen observation and a bit of patience.

Check Out: NYT Connections Hints October 16, 2025: Check Clues and Answers to Solve Today’s Puzzle Game

Hints for NYT Connections October 21, 2025  

The Connections puzzle, presented by The New York Times, for October 20, 2025 (Puzzle #863) is here! Here, four sets of words that appear to have no connection to one another actually have neat and relevant links, ranging from desserts to sea creatures! Put your thinking cap on and identify the patterns to identify today’s fantastic four categories.

Yellow Group Hint: Common faces and ranks found in a deck.

Green Group Hint: Synonyms for “takes up a challenge.”

Blue Group Hint: They play on courts, not fields.

Purple Group Hint: Things that respond to button presses.

Stepping back will often expose the clever logic that provided the unifying. Let’s take a moment to go through the groups together, and explore the connections that tie these words together so nicely.

NYT Connections Answers for October 21, 2025 (Tuesday)

Here are the solutions for the October 21, 2025 New York Times Connections puzzle, which is Puzzle #863! Today's Connections challenge was a delightful mix of themes that required you to do reasoning, and also think quickly on your feet. From flavor-packed desserts made with fruit, to mood descriptors, blue water creatures, and kooky phrases about bananas, each grouping came with its special twist. If you found all four groups of four words, congratulations, you completed a puzzle that combined wordplay, logic, and attention to detail seamlessly!

YELLOW: PLAYING CARDS (ACES, JACKS, KINGS, QUEENS)

GREEN: TAKES ON (ADDRESSES, DOES, HANDLES, TACKLES)

BLUE: N.B.A. TEAM (BUCKS, BULLS, HORNETS, SPURS)

PURPLE: THINGS YOU CAN CONTROL WITH REMOTES (DRONES, GARAGE DOORS, TELEVISIONS, WIIS)

It’s perfectly fine if you don’t complete a Connections puzzle, or if you need to set it aside before reaching the solution.

What is the NYT Connections Game?

NYT Connections is a daily word puzzle game from the New York Times. Players are presented with a grid of 16 words, seemingly unrelated to each other, and tasked to find connections. The aim of the game is to find connections to group them into four sets of four words. The common theme among the words can be categories like colors, movies, foods, or idioms. Each group is color-coded based on relative difficulty, from yellow (easy) to purple (hard). Players think critically by identifying patterns, double meanings, and subtler relationships. Developed by the NYT Games team, Connections has become a go-to brain game that is a playful way to use vocabulary, logic and lateral thinking.

How to Play the NYT Connections Puzzle?

In the New York Times Connections game, you start off with a grid of 16 words in the game’s first phase. Your primary task is to place those 16 words into four sets of four words each that share some hidden connection or theme. The hidden connections may rely on similarities in stretches of meanings, common phrases, categories of words, word-play elements, or more. You can select any four words at a time and submit that group to make your own guess. If it is, in fact, a correct group, it will highlight your guess in a color that signifies its level of difficulty, from yellow, which means "easy," to purple, which means "hard." You get four correct by passing into the second phase and then if you miss four correct groups, the game ends. So, as a strategy, be sure to think outside of the box, see if there are overlapping tricky connections, and use some automatic reasoning to uncover the logic of each set. 

Best Strategies to Solve NYT Connections Puzzles

To complete New York Times Connections puzzles quickly, you will want to use both logic and observation while staying strategic. Begin by reviewing all 16 words for quick connections or topics. Search for words that are unique or not common with the others, as they are often part of a category. Also, it’s important to consider the words from multiple perspectives - use their definitions, synonyms, phrases, or cultural references to connect them in the beginning. Group the words for a potential category, and if they seem to work, test the group or connect words from two different groups that seem to have some overlap or relevance. Take your time - let the easier connections help you make the harder connections. After you complete several puzzles, your overall pattern recognition and word association skills will take you're solving speed and accuracy on these puzzles to the next level.

Other NYT Games to Explore

If NYT Connections has become your new favorite, check out other daily brain teasers and games from The New York Times. 

Wordle: Guess a five-letter word in six attempts. 

Spelling Bee: Craft as many words as possible from a set of seven letters.

Mini Crossword: For a quick wordplay, perfect for a coffee break.

That's all for today's NYT Connections puzzle! Be sure to come back tomorrow for NYT Connections Hints and Answers for October 21, 2025.