NYT Connections today — hints and answers for Thursday, October 17 (game #494)

Good morning! Let's play Connections, the NYT's clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.

What should you do once you've finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I've also got daily Wordle hints and answers, Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too.

SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don't read on if you don't want to know the answers.

Your Connections expert

NYT Connections today (game #494) - today's words

Today's NYT Connections words are…

• PARK
• CAR
• HARVARD
• YARD
• ADDRESS
• GREEN
• JAW
• LEMON
• NATURAL
• CRIMINAL
• FIELD
• SWINGER
• HANDLE
• GOODFELLA
• ANSWER
• LAWN

NYT Connections today (game #494) - hint #1 - group hints

What are some clues for today's NYT Connections groups?

• Yellow: Bit of vegetation
• Green: I'll take this
• Blue: Shall we watch Megalopoli tonight?
• Purple: blank [the process by which justice is administered]

Need more clues?

We're firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today's NYT Connections puzzles…

NYT Connections today (game #494) - hint #2 - group answers

What are the answers for today's NYT Connections groups?

• YELLOW: GRASSY AREA
• GREEN: DEAL WITH
• BLUE: MOVIES WITH “S” REMOVED
• PURPLE: ___ LAW

Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections today (game #494) - the answers

The answers to today's Connections, game #494, are…

• YELLOW: GRASSY AREA GREEN, LAWN, PARK, YARD
• GREEN: DEAL WITH ADDRESS, ANSWER, FIELD, HANDLE
• BLUE: MOVIES WITH “S” REMOVED CAR, GOODFELLA, JAW, SWINGER
• PURPLE: ___ LAW CRIMINAL, HARVARD, LEMON, NATURAL

• My rating: Moderate
• My score: 2 mistakes

My plan to solve the hardest Connections groups first went completely off the rails today – and I'm blaming some classic NYT misdirection. I doubt I'll be the only person who would have thought to combine the wrong four of GREEN, LAWN, PARK, YARD and FIELD – but I did so twice before realizing that the last of those should instead be with ADDRESS, ANSWER and HANDLE to form the green DEAL WITH group. With that out of the way I was able to solve yellow, GRASSY AREA, which meant I had two guesses left and two to solve.

I focused on GOODFELLA, because there's only really one possible connection there – namely that if you add the letter S you get a film title. Doing the same with CAR, JAW and SWINGER gave me MOVIES WITH “S” REMOVED, meaning I didn't need to solve the purple group (and probably wouldn't have done if I had needed to).

How did you do today? Send me an email and let me know.

Yesterday's NYT Connections answers (Wednesday, 16 October, game #493)

• YELLOW: AT SOME FUTURE POINT EVENTUALLY, LATER, NEXT, SOON
• GREEN: PARTS OF A TOURNAMENT SETUP BRACKET, BYE, ROUND, SEED
• BLUE: BIT OF BREAKFAST CEREAL CHEERIO, FLAKE, PEBBLE, PUFF
• PURPLE: WHAT THE OUTSTRETCHED INDEX AND MIDDLE FINGERS CAN REPRESENT PEACE, SCISSORS, TWO, VICTORY

What is NYT Connections?

NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.

On the plus side, you don't technically need to solve the final one, as you'll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What's more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.

It's a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.

It's playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.