The New York Times Connections
The New York Times Connections

NEW YORK — The New York Times' Connections puzzle on Friday mixed everyday vocabulary with a clever spelling trick. Puzzle No. 1244 hid parts of the human eye inside some unlikely words.

Connections asks players to sort 16 words into four groups of four. Players get four mistakes, and the color-coded difficulty runs from yellow, the easiest, to purple, the trickiest, so obvious-looking connections often mislead.

Hints come first, followed by the full answers.

Today's word list

The 16 words on Friday's board are BACKUP, PICKUP, MAKEUP, HOT ROD, FLATBED, FABRIC, EXTRA, WOOLENS, TRAFFIC CONE, SEMI, CONSTITUTION, REPLACEMENT, SPARE, OSIRIS, STRUCTURE and TANKER.

How hard is it?

Reviewers found Friday's grid demanding. TechRadar's puzzle writer rated it "Hard" and needed one mistake to finish.

Watch out for decoys

Several words have more than one meaning. FABRIC and PICKUP each have more than one meaning, so players should check that the same connection fits all four words before submitting a set.

The "-UP" endings are another trap. BACKUP, PICKUP and MAKEUP look like a natural trio, but each belongs to a different group.

Hints for each group

The yellow category relates to what makes something what it is.

The green category relates to having something on hand just in case.

The blue category relates to different ways of transporting goods.

The purple category relates to things that share a particular human feature in their spelling.

Today's categories

The categories for Nov. 6 are Composition in yellow, Copy in green, Kinds of Trucks in blue and Ending in Parts of the Eye in purple.

Today's Connections answers

Spoiler warning: the full solutions follow.

The yellow group, Composition, is CONSTITUTION, FABRIC, MAKEUP and STRUCTURE. Each word describes what something is made of, as in "the fabric of society."

The green group, Copy, is BACKUP, EXTRA, REPLACEMENT and SPARE. These words describe a duplicate kept on hand in case it is needed.

The blue group, Kinds of Trucks, is FLATBED, PICKUP, SEMI and TANKER.

The purple group, Ending in Parts of the Eye, is HOT ROD, OSIRIS, TRAFFIC CONE and WOOLENS. HOT ROD ends in "rod," OSIRIS ends in "iris," TRAFFIC CONE ends in "cone," and WOOLENS ends in "lens." Rods and cones are light-sensitive cells in the retina, the iris controls how much light enters the eye, and the lens focuses it.

Strategy tips

The trucks group was probably the safest place to start, since FLATBED, SEMI and TANKER rarely mean anything else.

Unlike the other categories, the purple answers depend on hidden word endings rather than shared definitions. When a word like OSIRIS or WOOLENS seems out of place, try splitting it into smaller pieces to see whether a hidden word appears.

Players should also be careful with PICKUP. It can easily look like a copy-related term or a "-UP" word, but it belongs with the trucks.

About the game

The New York Times launched Connections in 2023, and the puzzles are written by the paper's crossword editor, Wyna Liu.

A new puzzle appears at midnight in each player's time zone. Connections No. 1245 will be released Saturday.