NYT Connections puzzle #882 was published on Sunday, November 9, 2025. Below are the 16 words, followed by increasingly revealing hints, category names, and the complete solution. Stop wherever you want to avoid further spoilers.
The 16 words in Connections #882
NOODLE · MIRROR · CRONUT · MUSE · COMPACT · CRANIUM · REFLECT · TWEEZERS · PUFNSTUF · DENSE · BRUSH · TIGHT · DELIBERATE · LUNAR · THICK · NAIL FILE
Group hints
These clues reveal the general idea of each group without naming its category or listing its answers. The original purple clue is preserved as written.
- Yellow: Keep yourself tidy
- Green: Jammed in
- Blue: Think about it
- Purple: Words that sound avarian
Category names
More of a hint, but still not the full answer set:
- Yellow: PERSONAL GROOMING ITEMS
- Green: PACKED
- Blue: PONDER
- Purple: STARTING WITH BIRD HOMOPHONES
Connections #882 answers
Spoilers below: These are the four completed groups reported for the November 9 puzzle.
#1 Best Overall
- Yellow — PERSONAL GROOMING ITEMS: BRUSH, MIRROR, NAIL FILE, TWEEZERS
- Green — PACKED: COMPACT, DENSE, THICK, TIGHT
- Blue — PONDER: DELIBERATE, MUSE, NOODLE, REFLECT
- Purple — STARTING WITH BIRD HOMOPHONES: CRANIUM, CRONUT, LUNAR, PUFNSTUF
Can you replay the November 9 Connections puzzle?
The New York Times says its Connections archive goes back to June 12, 2023 and is available to Games and All Access subscribers. You need an NYT account for archive progress and play history. You can open the archive in a browser at nytimes.com/crosswords or in the Connections Archive section of the Games app; it is not in the News app’s Play tab. A completed archived puzzle cannot be replayed. Archive play can affect puzzles-completed and win-rate statistics, but not current or maximum streaks. Check NYT’s Connections help page for current access details and subscription terms.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What Connections asks you to do
Connections presents 16 terms and asks you to sort them into four groups of four related words. In a 2024 study, Angel Yahir Loredo Lopez, Tyler McDonald, and Ali Emami tested people and language models under different hint conditions. In that study’s Full Hints setup, participants scored 60.67% and Claude 3.5, the best-performing tested model in that setup, scored 40.25%. Those results describe that study’s sample and experimental conditions, not players generally or puzzle #882. Read the paper on arXiv.
Quick Recap
Rank #2
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