Connections Hint and Answers Today (#1229, October 22, 2026)

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle, #1229 for Thursday, October 22, 2026, is a satisfying board with one genuinely devious group hiding at the bottom. The easy group falls quickly, the middle two reward anyone who spots the theme early, and the purple group is pure wordplay that most players only see after everything else is solved. If you are stuck with mistakes running low, use the category hints below in order, from yellow to purple, and only scroll to the full answers when you are ready. Each hint spoils a little more than the one before it.

Today’s 16 words

Here is the full board for puzzle #1229:

  • BLANK
  • BUST
  • COMFORT
  • END
  • GRIP
  • GUARD
  • HANDLE
  • HILT
  • KNOB
  • MOBILE
  • PILL
  • RELIEF
  • SAFETY
  • SHE
  • STATUE
  • TACKLE

Category hints (no answers yet)

Work through these in order. Yellow is the group Connections intends to be the most straightforward, and purple is the trickiest.

Yellow hint

Think about the things your hand closes around during an ordinary day. A suitcase, a door, a sword. Four of today’s words are all parts that exist specifically so you can grab onto something.

Green hint

Take a slow walk through an art museum. Four of today’s words name different kinds of sculpted artwork you might find on a pedestal, hanging from a ceiling, or carved into a wall.

Blue hint

Picture a team lining up before the snap. Four of today’s words are positions on an American football field. Watch out, though, because at least two of them look like they belong in other groups at first glance.

Purple hint

Read each leftover word as the beginning of something longer, and think about your bed. These four words are each the first chunk of a familiar bedding term, with the ending cut off. If a word looks too short or oddly incomplete, that is the clue.

Spoiler warning

Stop here if you want to keep solving on your own. The complete solved board for Connections #1229, with all four category names and explanations, is directly below.

Today’s Connections answers

Yellow: PARTS TO BE GRASPED

GRIP, HANDLE, HILT, KNOB

Each of these is a part made for holding. You grip a handle, turn a knob, and hold a sword by its hilt. This is the group most players find first, and locking it in early clears the board nicely.

Green: KINDS OF SCULPTURES

BUST, MOBILE, RELIEF, STATUE

A bust sculpts a head and shoulders, a mobile is a hanging sculpture that moves with the air, a relief is carved so figures rise from a flat surface, and a statue is the classic full figure. The traps here are MOBILE, which begs to be read as a phone, and BUST, which has several unrelated meanings.

Blue: AMERICAN FOOTBALL POSITIONS

END, GUARD, SAFETY, TACKLE

Defensive end, guard, safety, and tackle are all positions on the field. This group is sneakier than it looks because every word has a common everyday meaning, and TACKLE also works as ordinary vocabulary about grabbing, which points players toward the yellow group by mistake.

Purple: STARTS OF BEDDING

BLANK, COMFORT, PILL, SHE

The wordplay group. Each word starts a bedding item once you add the missing ending: BLANK becomes blanket, COMFORT becomes comforter, PILL becomes pillow, and SHE becomes sheet. SHE is the giveaway once you see it, because it barely works as a standalone word on this board at all.

How the board tried to trick you

Today’s puzzle leans on double-duty words. HANDLE fits the football group as a verb in casual reading, SAFETY sounds like protective gear rather than a position, and MOBILE pulls hard toward phones and movement. The board rewards players who solve the sculpture group early, because once BUST, MOBILE, RELIEF, and STATUE leave the grid, the football positions stand out much more clearly.

Tips for tomorrow’s puzzle

  • Say the words out loud. Purple groups often hide sounds and word beginnings that your eyes skip over.
  • Look for words that feel incomplete. A word like SHE, sitting oddly on the board, is often a fragment of something bigger.
  • Hold your guesses. You only get four mistakes, so test a group in your head against all four words before you submit it.
  • Beware the obvious cluster. If five words seem to fit one theme, at least one of them belongs somewhere else.

Connections resets at midnight local time, and we will have hints and answers for #1230 here tomorrow. Good luck with the board.