Note : Make sure to complete today’s NYT Connections before reading further! We’ll be getting into spoilers for today’s game pretty quickly. If you need some help to complete the grid, you can find my NYT Connections hints and answers column for today right here :

Hey there, Connectors! Welcome to my deeper dive into today’s Connections answers. The idea behind this is to help clear things up for anyone who isn’t sure how today’s groups fit together.

If I’ve missed any red herrings or misunderstood something, let me know via email or on Discord . I don’t typically look at X or check the comments here.

I’m going to assume that you’ve already beaten today’s game. We’re going straight into spoiler territory here. So, consider this your one and only warning .

Here are today’s NYT Connections answers explained (and any red herrings I spot) for Monday, October 12:

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 status (CONDITION, SHAPE, SITUATION, STATE)

Connections – Green Group

🟩 tolerate (BEAR, HANDLE, STAND, WEATHER)

🟦 word shortenings, often (ABBREVIATION, CONTRACTION, ELISION, NICKNAME)

The category titles pretty much handle things for us in all three cases. For what it’s worth, ELISION refers to emitting a vowel, consonant or syllable while pronouncing a word. Where I’m from, it’s possible to say a sentence comprised entirely of vowel sounds .

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 words made using U.S. postal abbreviations (ALKYLAMIDE, CALAMARI, MANDARIN, MELAMINE)

I feel like if I didn’t do an Answers Explained today to go through this group, some of you may never have forgiven me.

These are words constructed using the two-letter abbreviations for each state in the U.S. Here’s how they break down:

  • ALKYLAMIDE > AL (Alabama), KY (Kentucky), LA (Louisiana), MI (Michigan), DE (Delaware)
  • CALAMARI > CA (California), LA (Louisiana), MA (Massachusetts), RI (Rhode Island)
  • MANDARIN > MA (Massachusetts), ND (North Dakota), AR (Arkansas), IN (Indiana)
  • MELAMINE > ME (Maine), LA (Louisiana), MI (Michigan), NE (Nebraska)

Connections – Red Herrings

I didn’t see any red herrings today, but the top line had STATE and ABBREVIATION right next to each other, which turned out to be a hint for the purples.

If you’d like to chat about today’s game of Connections and just about anything else with me and a very lovely group of people, you can do just that in our Discord community . We’d love for you to hang out with us.

I’ll be back with another set of NYT Connections hints and answers tomorrow, as well as another edition of this one, all going well. You’ll be able to find both of those on my Forbes author page when the time comes (following me there helps me out too!). As for the weekend editions of my NYT Connections hints and answers column, I’m currently doing that via my newsletter, Pastimes .