Overview
Here are today’s Connections hints and answers for NYT Connections No. 1,217 on Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026. This puzzle was pretty average, I thought, although at first I mixed up some of the yellow and green answers. 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: College students need to know this.
Green group hint: I would guess or assume.
Blue group hint: Think Facebook or Instagram.
Purple group hint: Muhammad Ali
Solutions
Yellow group: Useful when writing a paper.
Green group: Presume.
Blue group: Social media sections.
Purple group: ____ boxing.
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 useful when writing a paper.
The four answers are draft, notes, outline and thesis.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is presume.
The four answers are figure, gather, imagine and suppose.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is social media sections.
The four answers are feed, messages, notifications and profile.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is ____ boxing.
The four answers are beat, kick, shadow and un.
Gameplay Rules
In Connections, you look at a grid of 16 words and pick four words that have a connection to one another. 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 is almost always going to be wrong.
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.
