Here are today’s Connections hints and answers for NYT Connections No. 1,224 on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. I thought the purple category was easy today. We’ll give you a hint for each color group first, then reveal today’s Connections answers further down.

Today’s Connections hints

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Hey, pay attention!

Green group hint: Say cheese!

Blue group hint: Pinch!

Purple group hint: Same word in front of these four.

Today’s Connections answers

Yellow group: Digital notifications.

Green group: Photo.

Blue group: Kinds of crabs.

Purple group: La ____.

CNET publishes daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is digital notifications.

The four answers are alert, chime, ding and ping.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is photo.

The four answers are print, shot, snap and still.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is kinds of crabs.

The four answers are fiddler, hermit, king and snow.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is la ____.

The four answers are Bohème, Brea, Paz and Scala.

How to play Connections

In Connections, you look at a grid of 16 words and pick four words that have a connection to one another. You do this four times until all 16 words in the puzzle are grouped. The tough part is that Times puzzle editor Wyna Liu chooses words that could fit in multiple groups. The obvious guess — Hey, those are four animals! — is almost always going to be wrong. I’ve compiled my favorite tips for Connections if you need a boost.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of “Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the ’70s and ’80s,” as well as “The Totally Sweet ’90s.” She’s been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She’s Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she’ll be first in line.

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