Connections #1,218
October 11, 2026Sixteen words and four groups of four. Yellow is usually the straightforward one and purple is usually wordplay, so the hints below go one step at a time.
Hint 1: one word from each group
- Yellow: one of the four is APPLY.
- Green: one of the four is CABLE.
- Blue: one of the four is MAP.
- Purple: one of the four is EMPLOY.
Hint 2: the four categories
- Yellow: Put To Use.
- Green: Monthly Bills.
- Blue: Things You Might Find In A Glove Compartment.
- Purple: Ending In Gambits.
Today's Connections groups, #1,218
The purple group
Purple today is Ending In Gambits: EMPLOY, PATRICK, PERUSE, SYNTACTIC. Purple is the group the setters build last, and it is usually a hidden word, a sound, or a phrase pattern rather than a plain category. If two of its words looked like they belonged somewhere else, that was the point.
Yesterday's Connections
Connections #1,217, October 10, 2026: Useful When Writing A Paper (DRAFT, NOTES, OUTLINE, THESIS); Presume (FIGURE, GATHER, IMAGINE, SUPPOSE); Social Media Sections (FEED, MESSAGES, NOTIFICATIONS, PROFILE); ___boxing (BEAT, KICK, SHADOW, UN). Yesterday's page ›
Connections is four groups. This one is five words.
One real news sentence a day, twenty to thirty words, something that actually happened. Keep the five words a headline would keep and let the rest go. Here is yesterday's, solved.
At Camden Lock, a 71-year-old woman, Beatrice Millar, took off her shoes, jumped in after a drowning man and saved him by holding his head above water.
Five tries. blue is the right word in the right place, orange is one of the five sitting somewhere else, grey is not one of them. The result beats the process, a name or a job beats a place, and the little words never count.
How you finish decides which sticker you keep.
