NYT Connections #1233 answer & hints: Monday, October 26, 2026

Updated: Monday, October 26, 2026 · Hints reviewed by Omer Liban · New puzzle daily at midnight US Eastern Time (5am UK). · Puzzle editor: Wyna Liu.

This page has every level of help for the NYT Connections puzzle #1233 of Monday, October 26, 2026: 3 spoiler-free hint tiers that narrow things down step by step, followed by the complete answers with explanations — each behind its own tap-to-reveal card.

Stuck on today's Connections? Work through the hint tiers below — each one gives away a little more, so you can get exactly as much help as you want and still keep the win.

New to Connections? The four answer groups are colour-coded by difficulty: 🟡 yellow is the easiest, then 🟢 green, 🔵 blue, and 🟣 purple — the trickiest, usually built on wordplay. The hints below use those colours.

Connections hints (October 26, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “CHILLING”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “PRAYER”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “HERDING”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “HALLOWEEK”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Responses to "how are you?"”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Kinds of mats”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Akc dog breed groups”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Horror movies with last letter changed”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Responses to "how are you?"”, and its four words are: CHILLING, MANAGING, NOT BAD, SAME OLD.

Connections answers — October 26, 2026 (#1233)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Responses to "how are you?"”. The words: CHILLING, MANAGING, NOT BAD, SAME OLD.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Kinds of mats”. The words: PRAYER, WELCOME, WRESTLING, YOGA.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Akc dog breed groups”. The words: HERDING, HOUND, SPORTING, TOY.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Horror movies with last letter changed”. The words: HALLOWEEK, HOSTED, JAWN, PSYCHS.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group's wordplay hinged on swapping the final letter of famous horror films—"Halloween" becomes Halloweek, "The Host" becomes Hosted, "Jaws" becomes Jawn, and "Psycho" becomes Psychs. The real trap was that HERDING, HOUND, SPORTING, and TOY are legitimately AKC dog breed classifications, which made them feel super solid and harder to question than the horror movie puns. WRESTLING and YOGA almost had a fighting chance of sneaking into the dog category since you could imagine wrestling or toy dog breeds, but thankfully the mat connection was stronger. If you spotted those horror titles right away, you avoided the biggest pitfall—getting lured into thinking dog breeds was the trickier category when it was actually just a straightforward one.

Next in today's routine: Wordle → · every game's answers on one page. New puzzle daily at midnight US Eastern Time (5am UK). Bookmark this page for tomorrow's hints. Or play Connections on the official site.

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Connections — common questions

What time does NYT Connections reset?

A new Connections puzzle is released daily at midnight US Eastern Time — that's 5am in the UK (4am during US daylight-saving transitions) and 12:00am for US East Coast players.

What do the Connections colours mean?

Yellow is the easiest group, then green, then blue, and purple is the trickiest — purple usually involves wordplay such as homophones, hidden words or 'words before/after X'.

How many mistakes are allowed in Connections?

You can make four mistakes before the puzzle ends. If you see 'one away…', exactly three of your four selected words belong together.

Previous Connections puzzles

Full Connections archive (185 puzzles) → · How to play Connections (and win more) →