Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on October 14 for puzzle #491 are a little harder than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 3.5 out of 5.
Every day, we update this article with Connections hints and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers. And if the hints aren't enough, you'll find all 4 answers below, with the category titles and the correlating words. Plus, we're including a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #490, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #491. Only read on if you want to know today's Connections answers.
Alternatively, visit our how to play NYT Connections guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.
Today's Connections answer — hints to help you solve it
Unlike our guide to today's Wordle answer, where we recommend the best Wordle start words as your strategy, solving Connections relies on identifying connecting categories among 16 words. Each category's difficulty level is represented by a color; yellow is the easiest grouping, and purple is the most challenging. Once you've made 4 mistakes in your guesses, the answers will be revealed, so hints can be helpful.
If you need hints to solve the groupings, then here are the themes of each, based on the order of difficulty:
- 🟨 Yellow: Rummage
- 🟩 Green: Sounds of thunder
- 🟦 Blue: Ways to wear your hair up
- 🟪 Purple: Things that can have leaves
These hints should get you at least some of the way towards finding today's Connections answers. If not, then you can read on for bigger clues; or, if you just want to know the answer, then scroll down further.
Here's a larger hint: Today's puzzle will have you tilling your brain for double meanings, especially as they pertain to the great outdoors. Just try to avoid splitting hairs.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #491?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Rummage: Comb, dig, root, sift
- 🟩 Sounds of thunder: Clap, peal, roll, rumble
- 🟦 Ways to wear your hair up: Braid, bun, pony, twist
- 🟪 Things that can have leaves: Book, salad, table, tree
Today's puzzle saw another jump in difficulty, which means the pressure was one after solving the easiest category first. I tried to connect Root and Dig with Tree at first, but once I realized that was a red herring, Comb and Sift were the only likely other candidates.
But first I struck out with my first guess, which got three out of four of the blue category answers. I knew it had something to do with hair, but it wasn't until I remembered Pony (tail) that it all fell together with Braid, Bun, and Twist.
After that came green. Roll, Rumble, and Clap were easy enough, but the last one had me digging deep into my library of "vocabulary words I've seen written and vaguely know what they mean" with Peal.
The purple category was surprisingly easy today, though it did have me wondering what Salad could possibly be connected to the whole time I was solving the puzzle. Once it was the only clue left along with Table, Tree, and Book, the wordplay became clear: They're all things with leaves.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #490, which had a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
After the puzzle's difficulty score plateaued for the last few days, Sunday's puzzle jumped up a bit, and it shows. I started off by getting the easiest category out of the way with what I thought were all animal body parts, Claw, Hoof, Horn, and Nail, not realizing that they share another thing on common too: all being made of keratin.
Next came the blue category, which stumped me for a bit. After striking out twice, I realized (MC) Hammer pants was the one pair I was missing alongside Capri, Cargo, and Stirrup.
After that was the green category. I've been watching a lot of cartoons on Disney Plus lately, so it wasn't too difficult to pick up that Anvil, Boulder, Coyote, and TNT were all mainstays of those old road runner Looney Tunes.
That made purple Sunday's rote fill, which was lucky for me because I didn't have a clue what California, Drum, Egg, and Honor all had in common. The wordplay or missing letter ones always stump me.
