NYT Connections #1243 answer & hints: Thursday, November 5, 2026

Updated: Thursday, November 5, 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 #1243 of Thursday, November 5, 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 (November 5, 2026)

1One word from each group

Yellow (easiest): one of its words is “KITTEN”.
Green (easy): one of its words is “ANEMONE”.
Blue (tricky): one of its words is “PEAR”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): one of its words is “BRANDO”.

2Category hints (no answers)

Yellow (easiest): the theme is “Kinds of heels”.
Green (easy): the theme is “Flowers”.
Blue (tricky): the theme is “Teardrop-shaped things”.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay): the theme is “Liquors with last letters changed”.

3One full group revealed

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Kinds of heels”, and its four words are: KITTEN, PLATFORM, SPIKE, WEDGE.

Connections answers — November 5, 2026 (#1243)

★Today's full Connections answers, explained

Yellow (easiest) — the connection is “Kinds of heels”. The words: KITTEN, PLATFORM, SPIKE, WEDGE.
Green (easy) — the connection is “Flowers”. The words: ANEMONE, LOTUS, NARCISSUS, ROSE.
Blue (tricky) — the connection is “Teardrop-shaped things”. The words: PEAR, RAINDROP, SPEEDBAG, UVULA.
Purple (trickiest, usually wordplay) — the connection is “Liquors with last letters changed”. The words: BRANDO, GIG, RUN, WHISKER.

The puzzle, explained

The purple group was brilliantly sneaky—each word is a liquor with its final letter swapped out: BRANDO (from brandy), GIG (from gin), RUN (from rum), and WHISKER (from whiskey). The real trap was that ROSE almost certainly pulled your eye toward the flowers category, when it actually belonged in the blue teardrop group as a rose petal shape. Meanwhile SPIKE created serious misdirection because it *is* a heel type, but also happens to end in E like the liquor swap pattern—though it correctly belongs with the other heel styles. If you grabbed PEAR for fruit instead of recognizing it as a teardrop shape, that was the puzzle's way of keeping you from seeing the liquor wordplay working in the background.

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.

More of today's puzzles

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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) →