Hints And Answers For Sunday, October 12 (#854)

Looking for a little help with your Sunday Connections puzzle? If you’re looking for extra clues – or the answers – 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.

October is trundling along at quite a merry clip.

As always, my weekend streaming guide is live with another bevy of new TV shows and movies to watch. There’s a new mystery thriller with Keira Knightley and a hilarious-looking new comedy / conspiracy thriller starring Tim Robinson out this weekend, and plenty more.

Alright, Connectioneers, let’s connect some words!

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.

What Are Today’s Connections Hints For Sunday, August 10th?

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:

• Returns
• Launches
• Robin
• Forever
• Pioneers
• Days
• Begins
• Swift
• Permanent
• Kite
• Eternal
• Ending
• Institutes
• Trails
• Swallow
• Everlasting

Hints for the Connections groups today are:

• 🟡Yellow group – Infinite.
• 🔵Blue group – Feathered friends.
• 🟢Green group – Puts into motion; creates.
• 🟣Purple group – Add a jolly word in front of these words.

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

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

• 🟡Yellow group – For All Time
• 🔵Blue group – Birds
• 🟢Green group – Establishes
• 🟣Purple group – HAPPY ______

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 – Eternal, Everlasting, Forever, Permanent
• 🔵Blue group – Kite, Robin, Swallow, Swift
• 🟢Green group – Begins, Institutes, Launches, Pioneers
• 🟣Purple group – Days, Ending, Returns, Trails

Last week’s Sunday Connections was much, much more challenging than today’s, though I suppose at least to some degree that depends on an individual’s vocabulary and general knowledge. If I had simply been less familiar with birds, for instance, the Blue Group might have proved more difficult.

The Red Herrings today were words like ENDING and RETURNS which muddied the Green Group’s waters. I could see how someone might get tripped up with BEGINS and ENDING, for instance. Or RETURNS and LAUNCHES.

I thought it was pretty clear that BEGINS, INSTITUTES, LAUNCHES, and PIONEERS were all words about starting something. Once these were out of the way, the Yellow Group was pretty obvious: ETERNAL, EVERLASTING, FOREVER, PERMANENT – all words about infinity.

As is so often the case, the Purple Group wasn’t obvious to me at all but it was easy because DAYS, ENDING, RETURNS and TRAILS were the only words remaining. They are all words that pair with HAPPY, which makes sense once you see it. Happy days!

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.