Hints And Answers For Sunday, October 19 (#861)

Looking for a little help with your Sunday Connections puzzle? If you’re in need of some extra clues or answers to today’s NYT Games puzzle, you’ve come to the right place. Below you’ll find an extra set of hints, the categories for each group and, finally, the solution to today’s puzzle.

We’re well past the halfway point in October now. Halloween is almost here and the leaves are falling in abundance. It’s quite lovely outside here in the mountains, though it’s certainly getting a lot chillier. Bundle up, it’s time to solve today’s Connections!

As always, my weekend streaming guide is out just in case you’re looking for something to watch this fine fall weekend.

If you’re looking for Saturday’s Connections guide, it’s right here.

How To Play Connections

Connections is the second-most popular NYT Games puzzle game outside of the main crossword itself, and an extremely fun, free offering that will get your brain moving every day. Play it right here.

The goal is to take a group of 16 words and find links between four pairs of four of them. They could be specific categories of terms, or they could be little world puzzles where words may come before or after them you need to figure out. And they get more complicated from there.

There is only one set of right answers for this, and you only get a certain number of tries so you can’t just spam around until you find something. There are difficulty tiers coded by color, which will usually go from yellow, blue/green to purple as difficulty increases, so know that going in and when you start linking them together.

You pick the four words you think are linked and either you will get a solve and a lit up row that shows you how you were connected. If you’re close, it will tell you that you’re one away. Again, four mistakes you lose, but if you want to know the answers without failing, either come here, or delete your web cookies and try again. If you want to play more puzzles, you can get an NYT Games subscription to access the full archives of all past puzzles.

NYT Connections Hints And Answers – Sunday, October 19

These are the hints that are laid out on the puzzle board itself, but after that, we will get into spoiler territory with some hints and eventually the answers. First, here are today’s Connections words:

• SPINE
• BUG
• MARSH
• FREAK
• JACKET
• SKORT
• COVER
• FALL
• FLIP
• WIPEOUT
• LEAVES
• TUMBLE
• DOVER
• CRUNCHY
• WIG
• SPILL

Hints for the Connections groups today are:

• 🟡Yellow group – Words that describe what happens when clumsiness and gravity are combined.
• 🔵Blue group – Add a word to each of these to indicate that someone’s temper has gotten the better of them.
• 🟢Green group – Words having to do with things you read, but not on Kindle.
• 🟣Purple group – Trick-or-treat! But with an extra letter.

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Alright, the full spoilers follow here as we get into what the groups are today:

• 🟡Yellow group – Topple
• 🔵Blue group – Lose it, with “out”
• 🟢Green group – Parts of a book
• 🟣Purple group – Chocolate bars plus a letter

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

The full-on answers are below for each group, finally inserting the four words in each category. Spoilers follow if you do not want to get this far. The Connections answers are:

• 🟡Yellow group – Fall, Spill, Tumble, Wipeout
• 🔵Blue group – Bug, Flip, Freak, Wig
• 🟢Green group – Cover, Jacket, Leaves, Spine
• 🟣Purple group – Crunchy, Dover, Marsh, Skort

The first two categories – Yellow and Blue – were pretty easy. The toppling words were especially obvious. Once I’d plugged in Fall, Spill, Tumble and Wipeout, I knew this would be the Yellow group, and sure enough . . . .

Blue might be tougher for people who haven’t heard these expressions. When you “bug out” or “flip out” or “freak out” or “wig out” it just means you’ve lost it, gotten upset or angry. Of course, “wipeout” is almost a clue for these. Reading that word can make you see the “out” that ought to follow each of the Blue words.

I was much more stumped on the Green and Purple groups. I made a couple of false connections. Words like “leaves” and “crunchy” certainly sound like they ought to go together. Perhaps people go to Dover, the capital city of Delaware, to see the leaves change (“leafers”). Is it marshy there?

I struggled with this one for awhile until I realized that books have spines. Books have covers and jackets. Books even have leaves. Sure enough, the green group was all parts of a book. That left the mysterious purple group, which I didn’t understand until I’d plugged them in. Mars and Crunch and Dove and Skor are all chocolate bars. All candy that hopeful trick-or-treaters who love chocolate are looking forward to on the 31st, when they don their costumes and head out to the streets to go door-to-door begging for sweets.

How did you do on today’s Connections? Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.

Find more guides to Wordle, Strands and the Mini Crossword on my blog where you can also follow me for TV and movie and video game coverage. Read my weekend streaming guide right here.