Looking for today's Connections answers? The Connections answers on November 1 for puzzle #509 are easier than yesterday's puzzle, with the Connections Companion rating this puzzle's difficulty at 2.6 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, #508, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.
Spoilers lie ahead for Connections #509. 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: Progress slowly
- 🟩 Green: Ways to order a beer
- 🟦 Blue: Cheesy corn snack unit
- 🟪 Purple: _____ effect
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: Grab some Cheetos, slowly get through the bag and order a beer to wash it all down before watching Ashton Kutcher's best(?) movie.
Today's Connections answers
So, what are today's Connections answers for game #509?
Drumroll, please...
- 🟨 Progress slowly: Crawl, creep, drag, inch
- 🟩 Ways to order a beer: Bottle, can, draft, tap
- 🟦 Cheesy corn snack unit: Ball, curl, doodle, puff
- 🟪 ____ effect: Butterfly, domino, halo, placebo
From jump I was looking for net related clue as I had drag net and butterfly net as possibilities. That one quickly fell off.
Sticking with drag, I did get creep, crawl and eventually inch for the yellow grouping. I get why drag works here but it feels too different from the other three words, in my opinion.
Draft and tap stuck out to me next, which made the search for bottle and can, as ways to have a beer, easy.
I got stuck here as I saw butterfly effect and placebo effect but was, until today, unaware of the domino effect or halo effect. The domino effect is self-explanatory, choices or events create a chain reaction of events and choices. The halo effect refers to when someone has a positive association with a person, brand or thing and because of that starts to have positive thoughts about related nouns. The more you know.
Anyway, during my search to figure this out, somehow cheese ball and cheese puff popped into my mind. Curl came shortly after and doodle, only because it didn't fit anywhere else I could think of.
And we ended on the aforementioned effects for the rote fill.
Yesterday's Connections answers
Reading this in a later time zone? Here are the Connections answers for game #508, which had a difficulty rating of 3.3 out of 5, according to the Connections Companion.
I wanted today to be more Halloween themed, but it ended up being more of a trick than treat, in that realm anyway.
It took a minute for the puzzle to come together but I kicked off with (Ford) Mustang and (Dodge) Viper and then recalled the (Alfa Romeo) Spider. I wasn't sure on the fourth so I guessed on (Lamborghini) Diablo, which ended up working.
I had seen flutter, wink and blink but number four, again wasn't clicking until I finally saw bat.
Similarly, for the yellow grouping, I had darling, love and treasure. I saved it with pumpkin. Save the cars group, putting one of the Halloween-esque words on the end is a good strategy if you find yourself lost on today's puzzle.
That left scavenger, egg, job and witch as various hunts.
For those who partake, Happy Halloween!
