NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, October 26

Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend so far.

I realized recently that I easily spend 50 hours a week working at my desk. That’s not great! I’m going to try to dial things back a bit in the coming months and find a healthier balance. I really want to free up some time to write more Pastimes stuff too.

Sitting on the same chair for so long isn’t exactly great. So one thing I’ve started doing is setting an annoying alarm that goes off roughly half-hour during my work day. I put that device out of arm’s reach. The idea is that I’ll have to get up to turn it off, and while I’m up, I may as well walk around for a bit.

I’ve been a little more consistent about doing this recently, which is definitely a positive thing. Ten laps of my kitchen table 10-12 times a day is better than staying on my rear end the entire time. Baby steps.

Before we begin, we have a great little community on Discord, where we chat about NYT Connections, the rest of the NYT games and all kinds of other stuff. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot, and you’re more than welcome to join us.

Discord is also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare (or not-so-rare) occasions that I mess something up. I don’t look at Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Sunday, October 26 are coming right up.

What Are Today’s Connections Hints?

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

• STARLING

• BRASS

• BEAUTY

• BEE

• STARING

• FLOAT

• DROPLET

• WIND

• STRING

• TALENT

• BUTTERFLY

• KITCHENETTE

• STING

• DOGGY

• PERCUSSION

• POPULARITY

And the level one hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• 🟨 Yellow group — as with many metalheads, you may see these in the pit

• 🟩 Green group — wise words from someone who said they were the greatest even before they knew they were

• 🟦 Blue group — there are plenty of ways to win in life

• 🟪 Purple group — not as big as they used to be

One Word For Each Connections Group

Need some extra help? 

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Let’s take a look at one word for each group.

Today’s Connections word hints are…

• 🟨 Yellow group — WIND

• 🟩 Green group — FLOAT

• 🟦 Blue group — TALENT

• 🟪 Purple group — STARLING

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Today’s Connections groups are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — kinds of instruments

• 🟩 Green group — words in a famous Muhammad Ali quote

• 🟦 Blue group — kinds of contests

• 🟪 Purple group — words with diminutive suffixes

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

• 🟨 Yellow group — kinds of instruments (BRASS, PERCUSSION, STRING, WIND)

• 🟩 Green group — words in a famous Muhammad Ali quote (BEE, BUTTERFLY, FLOAT, STING)

• 🟦 Blue group — kinds of contests (BEAUTY, POPULARITY, STARING, TALENT)

• 🟪 Purple group — words with diminutive suffixes (DOGGY, DROPLET, KITCHENETTE, STARLING)

I was pretty sure that FLOAT, STING, BUTTERFLY and BEE would prove to be a red herring. Since it was the first bunch of words I thought made sense together, I went for it. And look at that! I had the greens. It refers to Ali's quote, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

The yellows then jumped out at me on the smaller grid. Not sure why I didn't see those first. (These are, of course, sections of an orchestra, which is often placed in an orchestra pit.)

I then realized that POPULARITY, TALENT and BEAUTY were all types of contests. It took me a second to see(!) that STARING should go with them.

Just as well that I got the blues, because the purples were very much a by-default group for me today.

I studied English at university. I put words together for a living. I didn't know what was going on here.

"A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle something or someone." Thanks, Wikipedia.

So that gives us:

• dog > DOGGY

• drop > DROPLET

• kitchen > KITCHENETTE

• star > STARLING

I am way too tired to make more sense of this.

In any case, that's win 239 win in a row for me. Getting close to 250!!

How did you get on? Here's my grid for today:

🟩🟩🟩🟩 
🟨🟨🟨🟨 
🟦🟦🟦🟦 
🟪🟪🟪🟪

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. I’ll be back over at Forbes for the Monday-Friday editions for the column. And if you haven’t subscribed to Pastimes already, definitely do that! It would be super sweet of you.

P.S. I was very excited to find out last week that Foo Fighters are going on tour with support from Queens of The Stone Age. My two all-time favorite bands! Holy shit. I saw them play at a festival on the same day when I was… 17. Cool to have the chance to do that again.

I’m gonna grab a ticket for the Toronto show. Keeping my fingers crossed that both bands will be also confirmed for next year’s edition of Osheaga, the massive annual festival that takes place here in Montreal. Osheaga wraps up two days before that Toronto show and — as it stands — neither band has any shows scheduled in the two weeks before that. Hmmmm…

So, stop on by, boys. I’d love to be able to travel 20 minutes from my front door to see you yet again.

Since it’s Sunday and I like to go with more laid-back songs on this day of the week, here’s a nice little downtempo Foo Fighters tune I once sang at karaoke on vacation when I was a child. No, there’s no recording of that. And I’m still annoyed I didn’t do “Monkey Wrench” instead:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!

On weekdays, you can find this column over at Forbes. Please follow my blog there for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot!

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