NYT Connections Hints for October 26, 2026
The Spelling Twist Upending Sunday’s Grid For the October 26, 2026, New York Times Connections puzzle, players faced a grid pairing straightforward terms like “herding” and “hound” with a bizarre purple category altering the spelling of classic cinematic titles.
For the October 26, 2026 edition of the popular daily word game, puzzle editor Wyna Liu constructed a 16-word grid requiring players to find four groupings ranging from straightforward colloquialisms to specialized terminology and altered pop-culture words. Players tackling the grid had to navigate categories where words often fit into multiple groups, maintaining the signature difficulty of the New York Times puzzle.
Yellow, Green and Blue Groups Define Word Meanings
The yellow group focused on responses to “How are you?” featuring the words chilling, meaning gravely disturbing; managing, meaning to be responsible for organizing; not bad, meaning fairly good; and same old, meaning behavior that remains the same. Meanwhile, the green group centered on kinds of mats, utilizing the terms prayer, meaning to address a higher being; welcome, meaning to greet hospitably; wrestling, meaning an unarmed tussle between two people; and yoga, meaning a Hindu theistic philosophy teaching.
For the blue group, the theme shifted to American Kennel Club dog breed groups, bringing together herding, defined as bringing animals together into a group; hound, noted as a part of the hand in certain contexts; sporting, indicating interest in athletic sports; and toy, described as something for a child to play with.
The Bizarre Purple Twist
The hardest category proved to be the purple group, which featured the theme of horror movies with the last letter changed. The answers comprised Halloweek, defined as the week of Halloween and altering the film Halloween; hosted, meaning to provide the space and other things necessary, altering Hostel; jawn, identified as Philly slang, altering Jaws; and psychs, meaning happily excited or full of eager anticipation, altering Psycho.
Reaction to the puzzle highlighted the peculiarities of the October 26, 2026 grid, particularly regarding whether anyone actually uses “Halloweek” and how regional terms like the Philly slang “jawn” fit alongside typo-seeming alterations, while the blue dog breed group offered a straightforward experience for dog show enthusiasts.