The New York Times’s Connections puzzle on October 5, 2025, is a real treat for music lovers, particularly those who enjoyed the vibrant pop scene of the 1980s. If you’re a fan of Madonna or the iconic music from that era, you might find this particular challenge quite enjoyable and perhaps even a bit easier than usual.
What exactly is the NYT Connections puzzle? It’s a word game that challenges players to find common themes among a set of words. Much like Wordle, a new puzzle is released daily at midnight, and it can be quite a brain teaser, even for the most experienced players.
Created by Wyna Liu, an associate puzzle editor at The New York Times, the game offers a creative twist to the NYT Games lineup. You can play it on your phone or computer. The objective is to correctly group 16 words into four distinct sets, each belonging to a hidden category. These categories can range from movies and phrases to song titles. The challenge lies in identifying the connections that link the words in each group.
Once you successfully group words, they disappear from the board. However, incorrect guesses count as mistakes, and you only get four errors before the game ends. To keep things interesting, the words can be shuffled, offering new patterns to discover.
The game also features a color-coding system to indicate the difficulty of each category:
* **Yellow:** Easiest
* **Green:** Medium
* **Blue:** Hard
* **Purple:** Tricky
Similar to Wordle, players often share their colorful puzzle results on social media.
Here are the hints for today’s Connections categories:
* **Yellow:** Needed for greenery to flourish
* **Green:** To astonish
* **Blue:** Like a Virgin (hinting at Madonna’s song)
* **Purple:** ___ Car
And if you’re ready to see the solutions for today’s puzzle (#847):
* **Used to grow a houseplant:** POT, SEED, SOIL, WATER
* **Flabbergast:** FLOOR, ROCK, SHAKE, SHOCK
* **Madonna songs:** CHERISH, FROZEN, HOLIDAY, MUSIC
* **___ Car:** BUMPER, CLOWN, GETAWAY, SPORTS
Don’t be discouraged if you didn’t get all the answers right. Every day presents a new puzzle to sharpen your mind. Check back tomorrow for more hints, tips, and solutions!