The New York Times Connections
The New York Times Connections

NEW YORK — Sunday's New York Times Connections puzzle, No. 1232, was one of the toughest of the week. Several words related to hands and arms were scattered across all four groups, creating a puzzle full of red herrings.

Hints come first for players who want help without spoilers. The full answers follow farther down.

How Connections works

Connections presents a grid of 16 words that must be sorted into four groups of four. Each group is color-coded by difficulty:

Yellow: the most straightforward Green: moderate Blue: harder Purple: the trickiest, often based on wordplay

Players can make up to four mistakes. If a guess has three of the four words right, the game shows a "One away" message.

Sunday's 16 words

The grid for Oct. 25, 2026, included:

PALM, RIPLEY, GLOW STICK, ELBOW, BOOST, FINGERS, SWIFT, WAGON WHEEL, POCKET, FOOTBALL, SHELL, SAWYER, RUBBER BAND, SWIPE, BOW TIE, THUMB

Hints for each group

Forbes puzzle writer Erik Kain offered these clues:

Yellow: "Think pickpockets or burglars." Green: "Think Italian food." Blue: "You could add Cat, Riddle, Buchanan and a tank engine to this group." Purple: "You could add rice krispies or attention to this group. Or wish bones."

Why it was so hard

Kain rated the puzzle a 5 out of 5 on the Connections Bot difficulty scale and said it "did indeed challenge me to no end."

The main trap was a set of body-part words. PALM, ELBOW, FINGERS and THUMB all relate to the hand or arm, but they belong to four different groups. Kain called them "the biggest decoy on the board."

TechRadar puzzle writer Johnny Dee also rated it hard. He finished with three mistakes and said he ended up guessing his way through the final eight words. He said the purple group was difficult because he was unfamiliar with the American football meaning of "snap," the play that starts each down.

Today's Connections answers

Yellow — STEAL: BOOST, PALM, POCKET, SWIPE

Each word is slang for stealing. To "boost" or "swipe" something is to take it, while to "palm" or "pocket" an item means hiding it in your hand or pocket.

Green — PASTA SHAPES: BOW TIE, ELBOW, SHELL, WAGON WHEEL

All four are common pasta shapes: bow-tie pasta (farfalle), elbow macaroni, shells (conchiglie) and wagon wheels (rotelle). Kain said the group was "pretty easy even with the Wagon Wheel in there to throw you off the scent."

Blue — FICTIONAL TOMS: RIPLEY, SAWYER, SWIFT, THUMB

Each is the surname of a well-known fictional Tom: Tom Ripley, from Patricia Highsmith's novels, including "The Talented Mr. Ripley." Tom Sawyer, from Mark Twain's books. Tom Swift, from the long-running series of science adventure novels. And Tom Thumb, from English folklore.

Purple — THINGS THAT CAN BE SNAPPED: FINGERS, FOOTBALL, GLOW STICK, RUBBER BAND

People snap their fingers, a center snaps the football to begin a play, glow sticks are snapped to activate them, and rubber bands can be snapped.

Solving tips

Regular Connections players often use these strategies:

Spot the decoy theme. When several words share an obvious link, such as body parts, it is often a trap. Check whether each word fits another category. Think about multiple meanings. Many purple groups depend on a different sense of a word, like "snap" in football. Start with the most certain group. Sunday's pasta shapes were a safe place to begin for many solvers. Use "One away" wisely. Swap one word at a time instead of starting over. Shuffle the board. Rearranging the grid can reveal hidden links.

On Sunday, identifying ELBOW as pasta and THUMB as a fictional Tom early would have helped break up the body-part decoy and made the remaining groups easier to sort.

Other New York Times games

Connections is part of the Times' daily puzzle lineup alongside Wordle, Strands, Spelling Bee and The Mini Crossword. The Times also publishes Connections: Sports Edition, a separate puzzle built around athletes, teams and sports terms.

The Wordle answer for Sunday, Oct. 25, was DRESS.

A new Connections puzzle is released every day at midnight local time.