NYT Connections Hints Today: Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Stuck on Connections puzzle #1234? Each group below starts with a gentle hint. Open a starter word, then the category, and only reveal the full answers when you are ready. Your progress is remembered on this device.
Clues and hints for each group
Hint: Restless, idle handiwork on something you were told to leave alone.
Show one word from this group
One word that belongs here: TINKER
Show the category
Mess (With)
Hint: Tiny structures tucked inside your head that turn sound into signals.
Show one word from this group
One word that belongs here: STIRRUP
Show the category
Parts of the Ear
Hint: One short word fits after all four. Picture a fast-food chain, a Philadelphia landmark, a holiday song and an underwater chamber.
Show one word from this group
One word that belongs here: TACO
Show the category
___ Bell
Hint: One short word fits before all four. Think of flared 1970s trousers, a Sylvia Plath novel, a salad vegetable and a structure that holds clocks or chimes.
Show one word from this group
One word that belongs here: JAR
Show the category
Bell ___
Test your guess
Stuck between two ideas? Pick four words and check them. You will only hear whether it is right, one away, or not a group.
Select four words.
Full answers for puzzle #1234
Reveal all four groups and their words
Mess (With)
Parts of the Ear
___ Bell
Bell ___
Why these words go together
Open the walkthrough (contains spoilers)
Mess (With)
Each verb means to handle or interfere with something in a casual, unhelpful way, and each takes the word with: fiddle with, meddle with, tinker with and trifle with.
Parts of the Ear
The anvil and stirrup are two of the three tiny middle-ear bones, the drum is the eardrum, and the canal is the passage that carries sound inward.
___ Bell
Each word comes before bell: diving bell, jingle bell, Liberty Bell and Taco Bell.
Bell ___
Each word comes after bell: bell bottoms, The Bell Jar, bell pepper and bell tower.
Red herrings to watch for
Bell sits at both ends of the two trickiest groups, so JINGLE and TOWER can both feel like they belong with either one. DRUM and JINGLE pull toward music, and TRIFLE can pass for a dessert before you spot the with link.
Safest solving order
More Connections hints
Other Tuesday puzzles
- NYT Connections hints for Tuesday, October 20, 2026 Puzzle #1227
- NYT Connections hints for Tuesday, October 13, 2026 Puzzle #1220
- NYT Connections hints for Tuesday, October 6, 2026 Puzzle #1213
- NYT Connections hints for Tuesday, September 29, 2026 Puzzle #1206
All puzzles from October 2026 Search the full archive Today's clues Today's answers Strategy guide Colors explained
How these Connections hints work
Most hint sites hand you the answers straight away. Connections Hint is built for people who want to finish the puzzle themselves and only need a nudge. Each puzzle has three layers, and you open only as many as you need.
- A one-line hint per group. It points at the idea without naming the category or using any of the 16 words.
- One starter word, then the category. If the hint is not enough, reveal a single word from the group and then the category name.
- The full answers and walkthrough. When you are ready, open all four groups, the reasoning behind them, the red herrings and a safe solving order.
NYT Connections colors at a glance
Yellow
The most straightforward group. Start here when you can spot four obvious matches.
Green
Still approachable, but expect a little more thinking or a looser link.
Blue
Often trivia, a clever phrase or a less obvious connection.
Purple
Usually wordplay, hidden patterns or an unusual category. The hardest to see.
Colors only appear once you solve a group. Read the full guide to the Connections colors to see how to use them.
Five quick tips before you use a hint
- Read all 16 words once, slowly, before you tap anything.
- If a theme has five candidates, one of them is a decoy. Find the word with a better home elsewhere.
- Solve the most constrained group first, then let the rest shrink around it.
- Hit shuffle. The starting layout plants accidental neighbors.
- When the game says "one away", swap only the word you trust least.
More in the Connections strategy guide and the list of common category types.
Looking to improve over time? Visit the Connections learning center for our guides to solving patterns, avoiding red herrings and using hints without spoiling the whole board.
About NYT Connections and these hints
What is NYT Connections?
Connections is a daily word puzzle from The New York Times. You get a grid of 16 words and must sort them into four groups of four, where the words in each group share a hidden link. It launched in June 2023 and has a new grid every day. Read the full rules →
How are the hints on this site made?
Each day's hints, category explanations and red-herring notes are drafted with AI assistance and run through automated checks. A hint is rejected if it contains any of the 16 puzzle words or the key words of its category, so it nudges without giving the answer away. Some older archive puzzles start with simpler hints built from the shape of the category, under the same no-spoiler rules, and are upgraded to written hints over time.
Are your hints spoiler-free?
Yes. Each group starts with a one-line hint. A single word from the group and then the category name sit behind separate buttons, and the full answers stay hidden until you open them. You choose how much to reveal.
Does using a hint break my Connections streak?
No. The game only tracks whether you solved the grid, not where you got help. Using a hint from a site like ours does not change how your streak or stats are recorded.
Is NYT Connections free to play?
The daily puzzle is free to play on the New York Times Games site and in the NYT Games app. Browsing the game's own back catalog has generally been a subscriber feature, which is one reason people use an archive like ours.
Which Connections color is hardest?
Purple is usually the hardest because it tends to rely on wordplay, hidden patterns or an unusual category. Blue is often a trivia or phrase group. Difficulty is revealed only after a group is solved, so do not assume the easy-looking group is yellow.
How can I get better at Connections?
Scan all 16 words before you tap, find words that fit only one group first, use the shuffle button to clear false patterns, and treat every word as having a second meaning. Playing daily builds a mental library of the category types the editors favor. Read the strategy guide →
Is Connections Hint affiliated with The New York Times?
No. Connections Hint is an independent fan site. NYT Connections is a trademark of The New York Times Company. About this site →
See every frequently asked question →
Questions people ask
How hard is NYT Connections puzzle #1234?
We rate puzzle #1234 from October 27, 2026 as moderate, 3 out of 5. Yellow is always the gentlest group and purple the trickiest, so open the hints in color order to keep it spoiler-light.
How can I get a hint for the October 27, 2026 Connections puzzle without spoilers?
Every group on this page opens with a one-line hint. One word from the group and then the category name sit behind separate buttons, and the full answers stay hidden until you open them.
When does the new Connections puzzle come out?
A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight in your local time zone. We usually publish the next puzzle's hints the evening before, US time, so they are ready when your grid refreshes. See today's hints →
How many mistakes are you allowed in Connections?
You have four mistakes. The fourth wrong guess ends the game, so you can safely miss three times. If the game says you are "one away", three of your four words are correct.
Where can I find yesterday's Connections answers?
Open the Yesterday page for the previous puzzle, or search the archive by date, puzzle number, word or category. Yesterday's hints →