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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteSpoiler warning: The answer guide below reveals the hints and complete solution for NYT Connections #895, the puzzle released on November 22, 2025.
Spoiler warning: This page gives progressively stronger hints and then the complete solution for NYT Connections #895, released on Saturday, November 22, 2025. If you are solving the puzzle, stop before the answer section when you have enough help.
The 16-word board is divided into four groups of four. The groups are ranked by the familiar Connections difficulty colors: yellow, green, blue, and purple, with purple generally the trickiest category. The New York Times Help Center describes the game’s basic format and color convention.
Connections #895 board words
Here are all 16 entries from the November 22, 2025 puzzle:
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#1 Best Overall
SPLASH, SALTY DOG, RAW, BITTER MELON, SOURSOP, DROP, SKIPPER, SWEETHEART, SWAB, CHAYOTE, PLEA, DAB, DURIAN, BIG, TAR, TOUCH
Hints for Connections #895
One-word hints
- Yellow: SPLASH
- Green: SKIPPER
- Blue: DURIAN
- Purple: SWEETHEART
Stronger category hints
- Yellow: Each can describe a small amount.
- Green: These are words or expressions for a sailor.
- Blue: These are edible plants associated with tropical climates.
- Purple: Each word can come before DEAL.
The answer guides from Forbes and Yahoo identify this as puzzle #895 for November 22, 2025. The puzzle number matters here: the title’s date does not include a year, and this researched match is historical rather than a November 22, 2026 puzzle.
Connections #895 answers
Yellow: LITTLE BIT
DAB, DROP, SPLASH, TOUCH
All four can mean a small amount or a small application of something. For example, you might use a dab of paint, add a drop of sauce, put a splash of water in a drink, or apply a touch of seasoning.
Rank #2
The potential trap is grammatical. Several of these words are also commonly used as verbs, but in this group they work as nouns describing a limited quantity.
Green: SAILOR
SALTY DOG, SKIPPER, SWAB, TAR
Salty dog is nautical slang for an experienced sailor. A skipper is most precisely a ship’s captain, but it belongs to the nautical sailor vocabulary used by this puzzle. Swab is an informal nautical term for a sailor, while tar is an old slang term for a sailor.
TAR is likely the hardest entry in this group. Its sailor meaning is associated with the traditional image of sailors wearing tarred clothing; it is not referring to the black road-sealing substance.
Blue: TROPICAL FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
BITTER MELON, CHAYOTE, DURIAN, SOURSOP
These are edible tropical fruits or vegetables:
- Bitter melon: a gourd-like edible plant known for its strongly bitter flavor.
- Chayote: an edible squash.
- Durian: a tropical fruit known for its distinctive strong smell.
- Soursop: a tropical fruit with soft, aromatic flesh.
This is the most knowledge-dependent group. CHAYOTE and SOURSOP may be unfamiliar, while BITTER MELON and DURIAN can initially look like clues about taste or smell rather than names of produce.
Purple: ___ DEAL
BIG, PLEA, RAW, SWEETHEART
Put DEAL after each word:
- big deal
- plea deal
- raw deal
- sweetheart deal
This is a phrase-completion category rather than a semantic group. The four words do not naturally belong together until the shared word DEAL is supplied.
How to solve Connections #895
A practical solving route is to begin with the most concrete cluster. BITTER MELON, CHAYOTE, DURIAN, and SOURSOP form a set of tropical produce. Once those four are removed, look for the small-quantity meanings of DAB, DROP, SPLASH, and TOUCH.
The remaining words then make the nautical group easier to see: SALTY DOG, SKIPPER, SWAB, and TAR. The last four entries resolve through the phrase pattern “___ deal.”
Why the puzzle is deceptive
- SALTY DOG sounds as if it could describe food or a drink, but here it is sailor slang.
- BITTER MELON may look like a taste-related phrase instead of a plant name.
- SWEETHEART initially reads as an affectionate noun, but it forms sweetheart deal.
- RAW, BIG, and PLEA seem unrelated until the phrase-completion pattern appears.
- DAB, DROP, SPLASH, and TOUCH can all be read as actions, obscuring their “small amount” noun meanings.
Some published guides characterized this puzzle as difficult; that assessment is attributed to those guides rather than presented as a personal solving time or score.
Want more Connections puzzles?
For readers who prefer solving away from a screen, Simon & Schuster describes the official Connections puzzle book as the first book-form edition of the category-matching game, with a lay-flat format designed for solving and sharing. It is a companion for additional puzzles, not a claim that puzzle #895 appears in the book.
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Frequently Asked Questions
When was Connections #895 released?
NYT Connections #895 was released on Saturday, November 22, 2025. The puzzle number distinguishes it from any future puzzle using the same calendar date.
What were the categories in Connections #895?
The four groups are LITTLE BIT, SAILOR, TROPICAL FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, and words that can precede DEAL.
What was the purple answer in Connections #895?
The purple group is BIG, PLEA, RAW, and SWEETHEART: big deal, plea deal, raw deal, and sweetheart deal.
The Bottom Line
The complete solution for NYT Connections #895 on November 22, 2025, is: LITTLE BIT — DAB, DROP, SPLASH, TOUCH; SAILOR — SALTY DOG, SKIPPER, SWAB, TAR; TROPICAL FRUITS AND VEGETABLES — BITTER MELON, CHAYOTE, DURIAN, SOURSOP; and ___ DEAL — BIG, PLEA, RAW, SWEETHEART.
Quick Recap
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