NYT Connections Hints Today: Thursday, October 30 Clues, Answers And Answers Explained (#872)
Find the links between the words to win today’s game of Connections.
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Each day’s game of NYT Connections goes live at midnight local time. Before we get to today’s NYT Connections hints and answers, here’s what you missed on Wednesday:
Hey there, Connectors! I hope you’ve had a great week so far.
I try to be relatively careful with my spending. If there’s something I really want and I can afford it, I’ll buy it. But I think it’s important to balance that carefully with planning for the future. I also enjoy a bargain and I’m fine with buying store-brand stuff.
However, there’s one thing I certainly don’t skimp on, and that’s toiletries. I really like stuff from a certain brand I won’t mention. Earlier this year, I ordered hand soap, shampoo and conditioner directly from this company. The total price made me wince slightly, but I hit the confirm button anyway.
A few days later, a package showed up at my door. Everything was in order. But then a few days after that, a second package with the same items showed up. I checked to make sure I hadn’t been charged twice. I had not. Can’t really complain about freebies! But I did finally have to buy more hand soap this week, and my credit card yelled at me.
Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Thursday, October 30 are coming right up. Let’s get rolling!
NYT Connections Hints – How To Play
Connections is a free New York Times daily word game that you can play on the NYT’s website or Games app. If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the Connections archive, which includes every previous game.
Connections presents you with a grid of 16 words (sometimes phrases, symbols or numbers). The aim is to arrange them into four groups of four. You don’t know how they hit together or what the category for each group is: that’s what you have to figure out.
There’s only one correct solution and there are often red herrings. You can guess incorrectly three times. A fourth wrong guess, and it’s game over.
Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to deduce, followed by blue, green and purple. Often, the yellow and green groups have synonyms, the blues have cultural references and the purples have some kind of wordplay involved. But this is not a hard and fast rule. Be ready for curveballs – part of the fun of Connections is in how the NYT shakes things up to keep you on your toes.
As with Wordle and similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends using an emoji-based grid. The game tracks your progress too.
Many players take pride in having long win streaks or getting a reverse rainbow – correctly guessing the purple, blue, green and yellow groups in that order with no mistakes. That adds an extra little challenge.
NYT Connections Hints – Today’s Word List
Scroll slowly! I’ll first give you a list of today’s words, then a hint for each category. After that, I’ll reveal one word that goes into each group. Then I’ll tell you the category names, followed by the full answers.
Today’s 16 words are…
- PUMPKIN
- HORROR
- MURDER
- MYSTERY
- BUTLER
- ANGEL
- ROMANCE
- CHARM
- FANTASY
- BLOOM
- SUGAR
- PARLIAMENT
- LEVY
- LOVE
- GAGGLE
- GUTHRIE
NYT Connections Hints
And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:
- 🟨 Yellow group — like a Best Picture-winning film from 1983 that stars Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson
- 🟩 Green group — spotted on bookstore signs
- 🟦 Blue group — like congress, murmuration, pride, pandemonium and flock
- 🟪 Purple group — Prince William’s daughter, Welsh, Welch, Gottfried, Brady, Beckham and Perry would all fit in here
NYT Connections Hints – One Answer Per Group
Need some extra help?
Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.
Let’s take a look at one answer for each group.
Here we go…
- 🟨 Yellow group — PUMPKIN
- 🟩 Green group — FANTASY
- 🟦 Blue group — GAGGLE
- 🟪 Purple group — BUTLER
NYT Connections Hints – Groups/Categories
Today’s Connections groups are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — terms of endearment
- 🟩 Green group — fiction genres
- 🟦 Blue group — collective nouns for birds
- 🟪 Purple group — people whose first names are U.S. cities
NYT 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 last chance to look away.
This is your final warning!
Today’s Connections answers are…
- 🟨 Yellow group — terms of endearment (ANGEL, LOVE, PUMPKIN, SUGAR)
- 🟩 Green group — fiction genres (FANTASY, HORROR, MYSTERY, ROMANCE)
- 🟦 Blue group — collective nouns for birds (CHARM, GAGGLE, MURDER, PARLIAMENT)
- 🟪 Purple group — people whose first names are U.S. cities (BLOOM, BUTLER, GUTHRIE, LEVY)
Another timely puzzle with Halloween tomorrow. Fun to see HORROR, MURDER and PUMPKIN on the grid in that respect. Still, I realized right away that HORROR had to go with the other fiction genres. The pet names were straightforward enough too. So, I had the greens and yellows taken care of.
GUTHRIE made me think of Woody GUTHRIE, but that probably wasn’t the right way to go. Eugene (or Daniel) LEVY didn’t seem like the right fit either.
MURDER (of crows) and GAGGLE (of geese) are groups of animals. I vaguely remembered that BUTLER and PARLIAMENT are cigarette brands too.
With those in mind, I went with my gut and a guess of BUTLER, PARLIAMENT, LEVY and GUTHRIE. That put me one away from a group. Hmmm…
I thought about those names again and then considered Austin BUTLER. Orlando BLOOM is a celebrity too. I shoved those together with LEVY and GUTHRIE and… what do you know? I had the purples.
These refer to:
- BLOOM: Orlando, Florida
- BUTLER: Austin, Texas
- GUTHRIE: Savannah, Georgia (as in the Today show host and not Woody Guthrie, as I’d initially suspected)
- LEVY: Eugene, Oregon
As for the other two blues I didn’t really know, they refer to a CHARM of hummingbirds and a PARLIAMENT of rooks or owls.
(I’ll get to the blue and purple hint references in a moment, for anyone who is wondering.)
Tough blue and purple groups today! I think that’s going to be a streak breaker for a lot of people. Still, I held on for a 243rd win in a row. Here’s my grid for today:
🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟨🟨🟨🟨
🟪🟦🟪🟪
🟪🟪🟪🟪
🟦🟦🟦🟦
I don’t have time to do a full Answers Explained column today. Some of you might be curious about the blue and purple hints, though, so let’s jam through those:
Blues:
- congress of crows
- murmuration of starlings
- pride of peacocks
- pandemonium of parrots
- flock of seagulls or swifts (or birds in general)
Purples:
- Prince William’s daughter: Charlotte, North Carolina
- Welsh: Irvine, California
- Welch: Florence, South Carolina (or Alabama or Oregon)
- Gottfried: Gilbert, Arizona
- Brady: Wayne, New Jersey
- Beckham: Victoria, Texas (or Brooklyn, New York!)
- Perry: Katy, Texas
I’ll try to remember to include “explained” in the headline of this column on days I’m not doing a separate Answers Explained column. Just for clarity’s sake.
Would you like chat with some lovely folks about today’s game? Want to hang out with others who enjoy Connections and other word games? You’re more than welcome to join our community on Discord. Expect fun GIFs, photos from Connectors’ travels and all kinds of other fun stuff.
That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Friday’s game if you need them.
P.S. This song has been in my head since it popped up in ReHeardle recently. I need to get it out of my brain, so I’m sharing it here. It’s a good one, though! And now I kinda want to rewatch the Guardians of the Galaxy movies:
Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Be kind to yourself and each other! Call someone you love!
Please follow my blog for more NYT Connections hints and help with other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. You can also read my weekend editions of this column at my newsletter, Pastimes.
