Do you like making connections in life? No, I am not talking about the ones on LinkedIn, but NYT’s much-hyped Connections game. Unlike the social media app, creating a connection in the game is pretty easy as you need to categorize four similar words into a category. It’s a simple yet challenging game that can test your wits as well as your vocabulary skills. So, without any further ado, here are the answers and hints for today’s NYT Connections #890 for November 17, 2025.
Today’s NYT Connections #890 Hints for November 17, 2025
Click here to reveal all the hints to get you started with today’s NYT Connections:
- Yellow category hint: Ways to say “Yes.”
- Green category hint: Things not allowed.
- Blue category hint: What you do on a basketball court.
- Purple category hint: The first half of the word is related to ‘Go away!’
Did you guess all the words? Let’s take a look at them below.
Today’s NYT Connections #890 Answer for November 17, 2025
Click here to reveal the solution to today’s NYT Connections:
- Yellow Category: Absolutely, Of course, Okey-Doke, Sure thing (“You Bet”)
- Green Category: Off-limits, Proscribed, Taboo, Verboten (Forbidden)
- Blue Category: Alley-Oop, Fadeaway, Finger Roll, Slam Dunk (Basketball Shots)
- Purple Category: Go-getter, Leavening, Scattergories, Shoo-in (Starting With Synonyms For “Scram!”)
What do you think of today’s NYT Connections puzzle?
Today’s Connections puzzle was a solid challenge. Yellow and Green offered an easy start with clear synonyms, while the Blue category required a bit of specific knowledge but was still familiar. The real difficulty lay in the Purple category. The words looked completely random, suggesting a clever, structural linguistic trick was at play. Discovering the hidden link that united those disparate words was the most rewarding part of the solve. A well-balanced puzzle overall. I’d rate this 4 out of 5.
You can also checkout today’s answers for other NYT puzzles :
- NYT Strands Puzzle Answers
- NYT Wordle Answers
- NYT Spelling Bee Answers
- NYT PIPS Answers
- NYT Mini Crossword
How to Play NYT Connections
Playing NYT Connections is pretty straightforward, as you need to group four similar words in a single group. However, the difficulty increases, with the yellow category being the easiest and purple being the hardest. The green category refers to moderate difficulty, while blue is complex, being one notch above.
There are 16 words in each puzzle, and there is a theme for each group, although the puzzle doesn’t reveal it. You only get four chances to correctly guess every group’s meaning; you can have four incorrect guesses, so use them wisely. If the answer is correct, you can move on to the next group otherwise, you are stuck with the same one.
Moreover, just like Wordle, Connections refreshes every 24 hours, so you will need to wait till the next day for a fresh one. Also, if you guess incorrectly, there’s no way to play the game again, and it will simply reveal the correct results.
While playing the game itself does not require an NYT connection, you will need to create one if you wish to track your progress. You can also share your results by copying them to the clipboard and pasting them wherever you want.
