Connections Hints for October 21, 2026
· No. 1,228
One hint per group, yellow to purple. Open only the group you're stuck on — the full solution stays hidden until you tap for it.
Hint 1 · Yellow group
Think of a school recess or a birthday party. Kids have played these for generations, often in a circle or on the grass.
Hint 2 · Green group
Playful nicknames for someone with a lot of clout, the one who calls the shots.
Hint 3 · Blue group
Picture the walls of a great art museum. These are well-known works, from a farm couple with a pitchfork to a figure clutching its face.
Hint 4 · Purple group
Take each name apart. Both halves are wrong about the thing they describe.
Show today’s answer
- Yellow (Classic children's games): DUCK DUCK GOOSE, HOT POTATO, LEAPFROG, MUSICAL CHAIRS
- Green (Important person): ALPHA DOG, BIG CHEESE, HEAVYWEIGHT, TOP BANANA
- Blue (Famous paintings): AMERICAN GOTHIC, CAMPBELL'S SOUP CAN, SUNFLOWERS, THE SCREAM
- Purple (Double misnomers (neither word is an accurate description)): ENGLISH HORN, GRAPE-NUTS, MANTIS SHRIMP, SWEETBREAD
The double misnomers were the sneakiest group. An English horn is a woodwind that has nothing to do with England, Grape-Nuts cereal has no grapes or nuts, a mantis shrimp is neither a mantis nor a true shrimp, and sweetbreads are organ meat that is neither sweet nor bread.
Connections hints, day by day
How our Connections hints work
Yellow first, purple last
The hints follow the puzzle's own order from easiest to trickiest, so you can stop wherever you are.
A hint names the theme, not the words
It tells you what the four words have in common. Spotting which four is still your job.
The trap gets a warning
When a word looks like it belongs to two groups, the hint for the harder group says so.