Introduction

Here are today’s Connections hints and answers for NYT Connections No. 1,222 on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. I completely fell for the red herring, spotting a bunch of sports words that usually go with “ball” and trying to make a group that way. I failed. We’ll give you a hint for each color group first, then reveal today’s Connections answers further down.

Today’s Connections hints

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Keep some chow for a long time.

Green group hint: I made the points!

Blue group hint: Way down.

Purple group hint: Change one letter and make a piece of land that’s not high up.

Today’s Connections answers

Yellow group: Ways to preserve food.

Green group: Things you can score in sports.

Blue group: Lowest part.

Purple group: Low landforms with a letter changed.

CNET publishes daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is ways to preserve food.

The four answers are cure, dry, pickle and smoke.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is things you can score in sports.

The four answers are basket, goal, run and touchdown.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is lowest part.

The four answers are base, bottom, foot and foundation.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is low landforms with a letter changed.

The four answers are cannon (canyon), forge (gorge), Racine (ravine) and volley (valley).

How to play Connections

In Connections, you look at a grid of 16 words and pick four words that have a connection to one other. You do this four times until all 16 words in the puzzle are grouped. The tough part is that Times puzzle editor Wyna Liu chooses words that could fit in multiple groups. The obvious guess — hey, those are four animals! — is almost always going to be wrong. I’ve compiled my favorite tips for Connections if you need a boost.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.