Today’s Connections Hints & Answers For October 5, 2024 (Puzzle #481)

If you struggle to dissect today’s Connections puzzle, you might need to re-examine your guesswork to ensure you are headed in the right direction. This often happens when you are trying to analyze the words as if you were x-raying them, and for me, this also means I happen to overthink the puzzle and guess wrong. To avoid that blunder, check out these hints and tricks to improve your puzzling day.

If you like Connections and still want to do more puzzling, you should try out the daily Mini Crossword puzzle. It is a smaller portion of the traditional crossword with the same clues you are familiar with. This makes it a fun puzzle to solve in a short amount of time, which makes it easier and less frustrating. Once you have completed it, you can add another victory to your day and feel good about your streak.

Today’s Connections Category Hints

OCTOBER 05 #481

After you have looked over and maybe tried a guess or two of your own on today’s puzzle, you may have come here in search of some hints. We have some for you that should help you evaluate the categories and do some deductive reasoning. Today’s puzzle has some odd words in the last two categories, and it can be hard to separate them out, which is what these clues are for.

• One category is about how a certain type of food is prepared.
• One category is about a type of clothing.
• One category is about things you find at a certain type of doctor.
• One category is about random items that became mainstays.

Once you have looked at the clues, you can evaluate whether you need more help or not. If you decide you do, we have all the category names ready and waiting in the table below.

Today’s Connections Answers

OCTOBER 05 #481

Yellow Answers: Revealed & Explained

This category’s most popular words include T-BONE and FILET, which are also the biggest signposting as to what the category might be. I also had heard of a SKIRT steak before, but I had to figure out what the last one was. I had already solved the next category, and I was pretty sure none of the other words were steak options. Luckily, this meant I was able to guess HANGER fairly quickly and easily, but I did have to look up what kind of steak cut that was afterward.

Green Answers: Revealed & Explained

I guessed this category first, as there has been a category like this in a Connections puzzle before. Once I saw BIKINI and HIPSTER, I felt like I was on the right path. The remaining two words, THONG and G-STRING, were more obvious to add in at that point. That made it easier to make one correct guess and eliminate four words from the remaining categories. It’s always weird to me how this can make the puzzle both easier and harder, depending on the words remaining.

Blue Answers: Revealed & Explained

There are plenty of reasons not to enjoy going to the dentist, and not many of us do. And, while the SINK, TOOTHBRUSH, and X-RAY might happen at every visit, you had best hope that the DRILL is not added in every time. This category proved harder because I thought it might be bathroom essentials, like a Q-TIP or CHAPSTICK, instead of items at the dentist. I certainly don’t have a drill or x-ray in my bathroom, which did throw me off and made a pretty checkboard pattern on my results screen.

Purple Answers: Revealed & Explained

There are a lot of brands that have become household names for items that are used all the time. Kleenex is a very popular one, but in this case, there are other items. XEROX might not be used as much anymore, but CHAPSTICK and Q-TIP are items I have in my house and was aware of. At first, I did not recognize what the category was supposed to be, but that made it harder. JACUZZI was one that I did not realize was a brand name either and that can make it harder to figure out.

Other Games Like Connections

After you finish this puzzle, you can move on to one of the other puzzles listed below. For those of you who have more affinity for numbers than I do, the Nerdle puzzle can be a fun one to try to solve.