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 Thursday, October 8:

Today’s NYT Connections Answers Explained

Connections – Yellow Group

🟨 follows, as rules (HEEDS, MINDS, REGARDS, RESPECTS)

These are more or less synonyms in this context.

Connections – Green Group

🟩 outdo (BEST, ECLIPSE, SURPASS, TOP)

Same here. In other words, they mean to perform better than someone else or your previous best effort.

🟦 things that come in threes (CHEERS, STOOGES, STRIKES, WISHES)

Three CHEERS of “hip, hip, hooray” may be yelled to celebrate someone or something.

The Three STOOGES were a comedy troupe that focused on slapstick and farce. They performed between 1922 and 1970.

In baseball, a batter is out after sustaining three STRIKES:

Three WISHES is a trope in fiction in which a being grants someone three wishes. One famous example is the story of Aladdin, who is granted three wishes after “freeing” a genie:

Connections – Purple Group

🟪 ending in actors named Tom (AUTOCRUISE, FOOLHARDY, MULHOLLAND, THANKS)

  • AUTOCRUISE > Tom Cruise
  • FOOLHARDY > Tom Hardy
  • MULHOLLAND > Tom Holland
  • THANKS > Tom Hanks

Connections – Red Herrings

REGARDS, BEST, CHEERS and THANKS are all comm0n ways of signing off an email.

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 .