NYT Connections Today – Hints and Answers for Monday, October 28 (Game #505)

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers into different categories. It can be tricky, so read on if you need pointers.

What should you do when you’re done? Of course, play some word games. I also have daily Wordle hints and answers, Strings of hints and answers And Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help with that too.

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

Your Connection Expert

Marc McLaren

NYT Connections Today (Game #505) – Today’s Words

NYT Connections hints for game 505 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

Today’s words from NYT Connections are…

GAMES
LOVE
PLEASE
DELAY
PRESTO
MEAN
THANK YOU
SHAZAM
AUDIBLE
ABRACADABRA
MEAN
TIDES
TO SUGGEST
TO HAVE
PANDORA
CHERISH

NYT Connections Today (Game #505) – Hint #1 – Group Hints

What are some pointers for current NYT Connections groups?

Yellow: Not Spotify
Vegetable: Point to
Blue: I do
Purple: Can get a good response

Need more clues?

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

NYT Connections Today (Game #505) – Hint #2 – Group Answers

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

YELLOW: AUDIO APPS
GREEN: INDICATE
BLUE: CHURCH OF ENGLAND MARRIAGE VOW VERBS
PURPLE: MAGIC WORDS

Okay, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.

NYT Connections Today (Game #505) – The Answers

NYT Connections answers for game 505 on a purple background

(Image credit: New York Times)

The answers to today’s Connections game, game #505, are…

YELLOW: AUDIO APPS AUDIBLE, PANDORA, SHAZAM, TIDE
GREEN: INDICATE MEANING, MEANING, SPELLING, SUGGESTING
BLUE: CHURCH OF ENGLAND MARRIAGE VOW VERBS CHERISH, HAVE, LOVE, LOVE
PURPLE: MAGIC WORDS ABRACADABRA, PLEASE, PRESTO, THANK YOU

My rating: Moderate
My score: 1 tip

There’s no way yellow is the easiest today. Or if it is, it just points out that this is a relatively tricky connection to solve. The four AUDIO APPS here – AUDIBLE, PANDORA, SHAZAM and TIDAL – are all familiar to me, but I’m a technology journalist and former music journalist. I sincerely doubt that the average person will recognize all four of these. It feels more like a blue group, or even purple.

To make matters worse, one of the words here – SHAZAM – could easily have gone alongside ABRACADABRA and PRESTO as part of MAGIC WORDS. Instead, the missing two were: PLEASE and THANK YOU – which gave me a good moment when I realized what the NYT had done here. Smart.

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

Yesterday’s NYT Connections answers (Sunday, October 27, game #504)

YELLOW: SASSY FUN, FRESH, SMART, WISE
GREEN: ATMOSPHERE AIR, FEELING, MOOD, QUALITY
BLUE: UNITS BAR, BELL, LUX, MOLE
PURPLE: THE LITTLE ___ Mermaid, Prince, Villains, Tramp

What is NYT Connections?

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

On the plus side, you technically don’t have to solve the last question, because you can answer it by a process of elimination. Plus, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you some breathing room.

It’s a bit more complicated than something like Wordle, though, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For example, beware of homophones and other word games that can obscure the answers.

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