If you’re looking for the Connections answer for Saturday, October 7, 2023, read on—I’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solutions to all four categories. Beware, there are spoilers below for October 7, NYT Connections #118! Read on if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Connections game.

If you want an easy way to come back to our Connections hints every day, bookmark this page. You can also find our past hints there as well, in case you want to know what you missed in a previous puzzle.

Below, I’ll give you some oblique hints at today’s Connections answers. And further down the page, I’ll reveal the themes and the answers. Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

Does today’s Connections game require any special knowledge?

Fortunately, no. Even though the words are all names, you don’t have to know any specific celebrities (or historical or fictional figures) to come up with the right groupings.

Here are some definitions of lesser-known words in today’s puzzle:

A DALE can be a name of any gender (DALE Earnhardt, DALE Evans) or a word meaning a wide valley.A SAVANNA is a grassland biome. Hints for the themes in today’s Connections puzzle

Here are some spoiler-free hints for the groupings in today’s Connections:

Yellow category - These all have the same ring to them. Green category - You’ll find these outdoors.Blue category - Something to do.Purple category - Something that goes back and forth. Does today’s Connections game involve any wordplay?

There’s a category based on how the words are spelled, and another based on how they are pronounced.

Ready to hear the answers? Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.

BEWARE: Spoilers follow for today’s Connections puzzle!

We’re about to give away some of the answers. Scroll slowly if you don’t want the whole thing spoiled. (The full solution is a bit further down.)

What are the ambiguous words in today’s Connections? A ROSE can be a flower, or the past tense of the verb “to rise.” MAY can be a month, or the modal verb indicating uncertainty or permission

What are the categories in today’s Connections?

Yellow: RHYMESGreen: NATURAL FEATURESBlue: PAST TENSE VERBSPurple: PALINDROMES DOUBLE BEWARE: THE SOLUTION IS BELOW

Ready to learn the answers to today’s Connections puzzle? I give them all away below.

What are the yellow words in today’s Connections?

The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward. The theme for today’s yellow group is RHYMES and the words are: DARREN, KAREN, SHARON, AARON.

What are the green words in today’s Connections?

The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest. The theme for today’s green category is NATURAL FEATURES and the words are: DALE, BROOK, SAVANNA, CLIFF.

What are the blue words in today’s Connections?

The blue grouping is the second-hardest. The theme for today’s blue category is PAST TENSE VERBS and the words are: DREW, ROSE, WILL, MAY. (I don’t see how they’re counting WILL and MAY as past tense; modal verbs arguably do not have tense.)

What are the purple words in today’s Connections?

The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest. The theme for today’s purple category is PALINDROMES and the words are: EVE, HANNAH, OTTO, NATAN.

How I solved today’s Connections

They’re all names?? Sigh. My first order of business was to separate the ones that must be names from the words that might not be. DALE, BROOK, and CLIFF are landscape features. NATAN is, Google tells me, a charity, a fashion company, and a soccer player.

KAREN, HANNAH, AARON, SHARON, DARREN, AND OTTO are all definite names. And hey—four of those rhyme. The category of RHYMES is my first hit.

Next, DALE, BROOK, CLIFF, and SAVANNA—all natural features. (It took me a minute to remember that SAVANNA, the biome, does not have an H at the end of it, although the name often does.)

MAY and WILL have to go together. Perhaps they go with DREW and ROSE, all verbs? Yes, but I really think the editors screwed up in naming this category—MAY and WILL are not past tense.

The final grouping, I didn’t get the connection before submitting. PALINDROMES, it turns out.

Connections Puzzle #118🟨🟨🟨🟨🟩🟩🟩🟩🟦🟦🟦🟦🟪🟪🟪🟪 How to play Connections

I have a full guide to playing Connections, but here’s a refresher on the rules:

First, find the Connections game either on the New York Times website or in their Crossword app. You’ll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase. Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common. Often they are all the same type of thing (for example: RAIN, SLEET, HAIL, and SNOW are all types of wet weather) but sometimes there is wordplay involved (for example, BUCKET, GUEST, TOP TEN, and WISH are all types of lists: bucket list, guest list, and so on).

Select four items and hit the Submit button. If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed. (Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.) If your guess was incorrect, you’ll get a chance to try again.

You win when you’ve correctly identified all four groups. But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.

How to win Connections

The most important thing to know to win Connections is that the groupings are designed to be tricky. Expect to see overlapping groups. For example, one puzzle seemed to include six breakfast foods: BACON, EGG, PANCAKE, OMELET, WAFFLE, and CEREAL. But BACON turned out to be part of a group of painters along with CLOSE, MUNCH, and WHISTLER, and EGG was in a group of things that come by the dozen (along with JUROR, ROSE, and MONTH). So don’t hit “submit” until you’ve confirmed that your group of four contains only those four things.

If you’re stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to have no connection to the others. If all that comes to mind when you see WHISTLER is the painting nicknamed “Whistler’s Mother,” you might be on to something. When I solved that one, I ended up googling whether there was a painter named Close, because Close didn’t fit any of the obvious themes, either.

Another way to win when you’re stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints–which is why we share these pointers every day. Check back tomorrow for the next puzzle!