Unlocking Today’s NYT Connections: Hints and Answers for October 15

The daily word-sorting challenge, Connections from The New York Times, offers a fresh grid of 16 words every day, testing players’ knowledge across general trivia, wordplay, and lateral thinking. Today’s puzzle (No. 857, dated October 15, 2025) provides a moderately challenging mix of categories, ranging from automotive history to military communication.

For those looking to conquer the puzzle or just curious about the day’s themes, here is a detailed breakdown of the hints, categories, and the final solution, designed to be original and informative for a news website.

Today’s Connections Word Grid

To start the puzzle, players are faced with a 4×4 grid of 16 seemingly random words. While the exact list of words is not provided here, knowing the four secret groups is the key to solving the challenge.

Spoiler-Free Hints for Today’s Puzzle

Before revealing the categories, here are four subtle clues—one for each of the four color-coded difficulty groups—to guide your initial guesses:

• Yellow Group (Easiest): Think about different places people go for a swim. Pay attention to specific shapes and grand designs.
• Green Group (Medium): These words are part of an international system used to spell things out clearly, often in aviation or military communication.
• Blue Group (Harder): All four words are the names of different vehicles made by the same, very famous American automotive brand. One word is a horse, another is a celebration, and a third is a small bean.
• Purple Group (The Tricky One): The connection here is wordplay. Each word can precede the same four-letter word to form a common compound term or familiar phrase.

The Four Hidden Categories (The Next Level Clue)

If the first set of hints didn’t quite get you there, here are the four categories that link the words together. Remember, the categories are ranked by increasing difficulty: Yellow (Easiest), Green, Blue, and Purple (Most Challenging).

Color	Category Name	Description
🟡 Yellow	TYPES OF POOLS	Words describing various kinds of swimming pools.
🟢 Green	IN THE NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET	Letters represented by code words for clarity in radio transmissions.
🔵 Blue	FORD MODELS	Names of popular cars, trucks, and SUVs produced by the Ford Motor Company.
🟣 Purple	___ SEAL	Words that can be placed directly before “SEAL” to create a new, recognizable two-word phrase.

Export to Sheets

---

NYT Connections Answers: October 15, 2025

Ready for the final solution? If you’re stuck, use this complete list to check your work or solve the puzzle.

Color	Category	Words in the Group
🟡 Yellow	TYPES OF POOLS	INFINITY, KIDDIE, KIDNEY, OLYMPIC
🟢 Green	IN THE NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET	BRAVO, DELTA, GOLF, LIMA
🔵 Blue	FORD MODELS	BRONCO, FIESTA, MUSTANG, PINTO
🟣 Purple	___ SEAL	ELEPHANT, GREAT, NAVY, VACUUM

Export to Sheets

The Purple Group Explained

The most difficult group often requires the biggest leap in logic. For today’s puzzle, the connection is the compound term formed when the four words are followed by “SEAL”:

• ELEPHANT SEAL
• GREAT SEAL
• NAVY SEAL
• VACUUM SEAL

How Today’s Puzzle Was Solved

The key to unlocking Connections #857 lay in separating the word pairings that might have been intentional red herrings. For example, some words might suggest a connection to types of beans (Kidney, Pinto, Lima, Navy), but only two of those words were related.

1. The Green group was solved first by recognizing the highly distinctive words from the NATO Phonetic Alphabet: BRAVO, DELTA, GOLF, and LIMA.
2. Next, the Blue group became clear for automotive enthusiasts: BRONCO, FIESTA, MUSTANG, and PINTO are all classic models from the Ford manufacturer.
3. The Yellow group, the easiest, was identified by looking for words that describe various TYPES OF POOLS: INFINITY (a design feature), KIDDIE (for children), KIDNEY (a common shape), and OLYMPIC (a standard size).
4. This left the four remaining words: ELEPHANT, GREAT, NAVY, and VACUUM. The final Purple connection was cracked by realizing each word precedes “SEAL” to form familiar phrases.

Congratulations to all who managed to solve today’s puzzle! A new Connections challenge will be available tomorrow at midnight EST.