Connections October 2, 2026: Hints & Answers (#1310)
The written hints below were assembled automatically from the board data rather than composed by an editor — accurate, just plainer than usual.
Recap
The 4 sets were FINANCE; FINGERS; CUSTOMARY; PRIME ___. In difficulty order the answers were FINANCE (BACK, BANKROLL, FUND, SUPPORT); FINGERS (INDEX, LITTLE, MIDDLE, RING); CUSTOMARY (COMMON, ROUTINE, STANDARD, STOCK); PRIME ___ (NUMBER, REAL ESTATE, RIB, TIME). This recap was assembled automatically from the puzzle data rather than written by an editor.
The sixteen tiles
The sixteen tiles as dealt. Reveal a group below to tint and caption its tiles here.
Connections hints, one rung at a time
Six rungs, softest first. The recap above already named the groups, so this ladder is here for anyone replaying the board fresh rather than as a spoiler shield.
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Hint 1: Four one-line nudges, one per group
The softest hint there is.
- Yellow
- Easiest set
- Green
- Second set
- Blue
- Third set
- Purple
- Trickiest set
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Hint 2: What linked each group, described
Still no titles and no tiles named.
Yellow group
Auto-generated hint: this is the first of 4 sets by difficulty, and its 4 tiles share one link that is not spelled out here.
Green group
Auto-generated hint: this is the second of 4 sets by difficulty, and its 4 tiles share one link that is not spelled out here.
Blue group
Auto-generated hint: this is the third of 4 sets by difficulty, and its 4 tiles share one link that is not spelled out here.
Purple group
Auto-generated hint: this is the fourth of 4 sets by difficulty, and its 4 tiles share one link that is not spelled out here.
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Hint 3: Board facts
Counted off the sixteen printed tiles.
Sixteen tiles, four groups of four, ordered yellow → green → blue → purple from most to least obvious. 1 of the sixteen tile was more than one word.
- Tiles
- 16 across 4 groups
- Longest tile
- 11 characters
- Shortest tile
- 3 characters
- Multi-word tiles
- 1
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Hint 4: The trap on this board
Which tiles pulled in two directions.
Auto-generated hint: all 16 tiles are printed above and exactly 4 of them belong to each of the 4 sets. Several tiles read naturally in more than one of them, which is where most attempts go wrong. Settle the one you are most confident about first, then read the remaining tiles again before you commit to anything else.
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Hint 5: The four category titles
Half the answer.
- Yellow
- FINANCE
- Green
- FINGERS
- Blue
- CUSTOMARY
- Purple
- PRIME ___
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Hint 6: One tile from each group
The anchor most people misplaced, matched to its title.
- Yellow — FINANCE
- BANKROLL
- Green — FINGERS
- LITTLE
- Blue — CUSTOMARY
- STANDARD
- Purple — PRIME ___
- REAL ESTATE
Every Connections group from that board
All four groups, folded. Opening one tints its four tiles above and captions them with the category name.
Yellow group · 4 tiles
FINANCE
BACK, BANKROLL, FUND, SUPPORT. FINANCE: BACK, BANKROLL, FUND, SUPPORT.
Green group · 4 tiles
FINGERS
INDEX, LITTLE, MIDDLE, RING. FINGERS: INDEX, LITTLE, MIDDLE, RING.
Blue group · 4 tiles
CUSTOMARY
COMMON, ROUTINE, STANDARD, STOCK. CUSTOMARY: COMMON, ROUTINE, STANDARD, STOCK.
Purple group · 4 tiles
PRIME ___
NUMBER, REAL ESTATE, RIB, TIME. PRIME ___: NUMBER, REAL ESTATE, RIB, TIME.
This board by the numbers
- Puzzle
- (#1310) · Friday, October 2, 2026
- Tiles
- 16 in a 4 × 4 grid
- Groups
- 4, yellow to purple
- Multi-word tiles
- 1
- Longest tile
- REAL ESTATE
- Mistakes allowed
- 4 before the board locked
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See the live Connections hints and answers page for the current board, or browse every archived Connections date by month.
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