Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on October 21 for puzzle #498 are a bit easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 1.8 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, #497, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #498. 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: Kinds of beans
- 🟩 Green: Attract
- 🟦 Blue: Automatic gear shifter positions
- 🟪 Purple: ____ pool
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 should pique your interest with canned food staples, driving lessons, and every pool except the kind you'd swim in.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #498?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Kinds of beans: Kidney, mung, navy, pinto
- 🟩 Attract: Draw, grab, hook, pull
- 🟦 Automatic gear shifter positions: Drive, low, neutral, reverse
- 🟪 ___ pool: Car, dead, liver, whirl
I must have been hungry, because I solved the yellow category right out the gate with Kidney, Mung, Navy, and Pinto. Which meant the pressure was on with only the more difficult categories left to solve.
Next, the green category caught my eye with Draw, Grab, Hook, and Pull. Blue was even easier with its clues based on your standard gear shift: Drive, Low, Neutral and Reverse. Y'know, the PRINDL.
Even the purple category wasn't too tough, though that could be because I finally saw Deadpool & Wolverine over the weekend. It's a bit of wordplay with each ending in pool: Car, Dead, Liver, and Whirl.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #497, which had a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
Yesterday might just hold the record for how quickly I was able to solve a category. Once I saw Article and Column, it was a matter of seconds before Feature and Story popped out at me, rounding out the yellow category.
I struck out once trying to connect all the sports-related words I saw before stumbling on Clatter and Ruckus. Row came to me after a moment, but it took me longer than I care to admit to remember Racket had more than one meaning.
With green out of the way, next came blue with Ball, Net, Paddle, and Table, all essential equipment you need for a game of ping pong.
That left the purple category, which you might need a dictionary to parse. At the very least it'll have you thinking back to Schoolhouse Rock (conjunction junction, what's that function~). Ok, fess up: Which one of the English majors on the Connections Crew came up with this one?
