NYT Connections Hints #845: Hints, Answers and Tips for 3 oct 2025
For puzzle enthusiasts, the day doesn’t truly begin until the New York Times games have been solved. While Wordle remains a global phenomenon, Connections has quickly cemented itself as a must-play daily brain teaser. Its unique challenge of finding the “common thread” between words requires a different kind of thinking, one that often leaves players scratching their heads.
If you’ve found yourself staring at the grid for Connections #845, you’re in the right place. This guide is designed to help you navigate the tricky groupings for the October 3, 2025 puzzle. Whether you need a small nudge in the right direction or the full solution, we have all the hints, answers, and strategies you need to maintain your winning streak. This comprehensive post will give you the NYT Connections hint you’re looking for and break down the logic behind each category.
Understanding the Basics of NYT Connections
Before we jump into today’s puzzle, let’s quickly review the rules. Connections presents you with a 4×4 grid of 16 words. Your goal is to organize these words into four distinct groups of four, based on a shared characteristic.
Once you believe you have identified a group, you select the four words and hit “Submit.” The game has four color-coded difficulty levels:
- Yellow: The most straightforward and easiest to identify.
- Green: A bit more challenging than yellow.
- Blue: Requires more abstract thinking.
- Purple: The trickiest category, often involving puns, wordplay, or less obvious connections.
You have four mistakes before the game ends. A “one away” message is a helpful clue that you’re on the right track, with three out of four words correct in your selected group.
Recap of Yesterday’s Connections (October 2, 2025)
To get our minds warmed up, let’s take a quick look back at the solution for puzzle #844. Yesterday’s categories were:
- Yellow: SYNONYMS FOR “SMALL” — LITTLE, MINOR, PETTY, TRIVIAL
- Green: PARTS OF A TREE — BRANCH, LEAF, ROOT, TRUNK
- Blue: MOVIE FRANCHISES — ALIEN, ROCKY, SCREAM, SAW
- Purple: HOMOPHONES OF LETTERS — AWE (O), BEE (B), SEA (C), WHY (Y)
Yesterday’s purple category was a classic example of the game’s clever wordplay. Now, let’s see what challenges today’s puzzle holds.
Hints for NYT Connections #845 (October 3, 2025)
Stuck on the Connections puzzle for today? Here are some clues to help you solve it without revealing the full answers just yet. We’ll start with broad hints and gradually get more specific.
Today’s words are:
EDGE, FOOTBALL, EDITOR, MEMORY, TORNADO, EDWARD, LIMIT, EDDY, EDELWEISS, TASMANIAN DEVIL, EDUCATION, CABARET, BORDER, PAST TENSE, MAMMA MIA, EXTREMITY
Category Specific Hints
If you’re looking for a connections hint today, try focusing on these specific clues for each color category.
- Yellow Category Hint: Think about the words you might use to describe the outer limits or periphery of something.
- Green Category Hint: These four things all share a particular type of motion. One is a weather phenomenon, and another is a famous cartoon character.
- Blue Category Hint: These words will have you humming a tune. They are all famous titles from the world of musical theater.
- Purple Category Hint: This is the trickiest group. The connection is phonetic. Think about what a person named “Ed” might stand for or support.
General Strategy Hints
- Look for Red Herrings: The word “EDWARD” seems like it could belong with other names, but there are no others. “FOOTBALL” might make you think of sports, but no other sports-related words are present. Identifying these misdirections is a key step.
- Say Words Aloud: The purple category often involves puns or phonetic tricks. Saying the words, especially those that seem out of place, can sometimes reveal a hidden sound-based connection.
- Group by Theme: Scan the grid for obvious themes. “MAMMA MIA,” “CABARET,” and “EDELWEISS” jump out as titles from entertainment, which is a great starting point for the blue category.
Answer Reveal: NYT Connections #845 (October 3, 2025)
Ready for the solution? If the hints weren’t enough, here are the full Connections puzzle answers for today, October 3, 2025.
- 🟡 Yellow Category: BOUNDARY
- BORDER, EDGE, EXTREMITY, LIMIT
- 🟢 Green Category: THINGS THAT MOVE IN A SPIRAL
- EDDY, FOOTBALL, TASMANIAN DEVIL, TORNADO
- 🔵 Blue Category: SONGS FROM MUSICALS
- CABARET, EDELWEISS, MAMMA MIA, MEMORY
- 🟣 Purple Category: WHAT “ED” MIGHT ADVOCATE
- EDITOR, EDUCATION, EDWARD, PAST TENSE
Category Breakdown and Explanations
Let’s break down how we got to these answers.
Yellow: BOUNDARY
This was the most straightforward group. The words BORDER, EDGE, EXTREMITY, and LIMIT are all synonyms that refer to the furthest point or the dividing line of an area or concept. This is a classic yellow category that relies on simple synonym recognition.
Green: THINGS THAT MOVE IN A SPIRAL
This category was a bit more challenging. The connection is a specific type of movement.
- An EDDY is a circular current of water.
- A FOOTBALL is often thrown in a spiral.
- The Looney Tunes TASMANIAN DEVIL famously spins like a whirlwind.
- A TORNADO is a violently rotating column of air.
The inclusion of the cartoon character makes this group more creative than a simple list of natural phenomena.
Blue: SONGS FROM MUSICALS
For fans of musical theater, this group may have been fairly easy to spot.
- “CABARET” is the title song from the musical of the same name.
- “EDELWEISS” is a famous ballad from The Sound of Music.
- “MAMMA MIA” is the title track of the ABBA-based musical.
- “MEMORY” is the iconic showstopper from Cats.
“MEMORY” might have been a bit of a red herring, potentially grouping with concepts of the mind, but its place here is definitive once you spot the other musical titles.
Purple: WHAT “ED” MIGHT ADVOCATE
This is a fantastic example of a tricky purple category that relies on wordplay. The connection is that each word/phrase can be interpreted as something a person nicknamed “Ed” would support.
- EDITOR: Ed-itor
- EDUCATION: Ed-ucation
- EDWARD: Ed-ward (as in, a ward of Ed)
- PAST TENSE: “Passed-tense,” or something Ed has approved. Some might also read it as “Past Ed’s.”
This group requires you to think outside the box and listen to the sounds of the words, making it a satisfying “aha!” moment for those who solve it.
Difficulty Analysis of the Puzzle
Overall, Connections #845 was a moderately challenging puzzle.
- The yellow category was very accessible.
- The blue category was also relatively simple for anyone with a passing knowledge of famous musicals.
- The green category presented a decent challenge, requiring players to connect a sport, a weather event, a water current, and a cartoon character through their shared motion.
- The purple category was undoubtedly the most difficult, hinging on a clever phonetic pun that is the hallmark of the game’s toughest groupings.
The presence of words like “EDWARD” and “EDGE,” which share the letters “ED,” was a deliberate misdirection designed to trip up players and make the purple category harder to uncover.
Community Reactions and Discussion
One of the best parts of playing NYT Connections is sharing your results and frustrations with the online community. On platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, players often share their grids and comment on the day’s difficulty.
Today, many players will likely celebrate solving the tricky purple category, while others might express frustration over the “TASMANIAN DEVIL” clue in the green group. The “what Ed might advocate” theme is sure to be a major talking point. Did you find it clever or too obscure?
Tips and Tricks for Better Gameplay
Want to improve your Connections skills? Here are a few strategies to keep in mind for future puzzles:
- Don’t Rush into Submissions: Use all four of your mistakes wisely. Before submitting a group, double-check that all four words fit the connection you’ve identified perfectly.
- Identify Potential Categories First: Instead of focusing on individual words, scan the entire grid and try to brainstorm potential category themes. This can help you see the bigger picture.
- Shuffle the Board: If you’re stuck, hitting the “Shuffle” button can give you a fresh perspective. Seeing the words in a new arrangement can help you spot connections you previously missed.
- Work Backwards from the Odd Ones Out: Sometimes the strangest word on the board is the key. If a word like “EDELWEISS” seems out of place, consider what unusual category it might belong to (like musical songs).
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A new Connections puzzle is released every day at midnight in your local time zone.
Unfortunately, the New York Times website does not have an official archive of past Connections puzzles. However, several unofficial fan-made websites have started archiving the daily games.
The only hint the game provides is the “one away” notification, which tells you that three of your four selected words belong in a group together. There are no other official in-game hints.
A Puzzle Worth Connecting With
NYT Connections continues to prove itself as a brilliantly designed game that challenges players to think creatively and critically. Puzzle #845 was a perfect example of this, blending straightforward synonym groups with clever, abstract connections that reward lateral thinking.
How did you do with today’s puzzle? Did the purple category stump you, or did you crack it right away? Share your results and your thoughts on today’s connections in the comments below!
previous wordleanswer answer
- NYT Connections Hints #844: Hints, Answers and Tips for 2 Oct 2025
- NYT Connections Hints #843: Hints, Answers and Tips for 1 Oct 2025
- NYT Connections Hints #840: Hints, Answers and Tips for 28 Sep 2025
- NYT Connections Hints #839: Hints, Answers and Tips for 27 Sep 2025
- NYT Connections Hints #838: Hints, Answers and Tips for 26 Sep 2025
