Today’s NYT Connections wall leans hard on short phrases and wordplay: tiny quantities, nautical slang, tropical produce, and a set of “deals” hiding in plain sight. If you’ve cleared some of the board but keep running into trap guesses, lining everything up by category makes the grid much easier to read.
Quick reference: today’s four Connections groups (#895)
| Color | Category title | Words in the group | Shared idea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow | Little Bit | Dab, Drop, Splash, Touch | Very small amounts of something |
| Green | Sailor | Salty Dog, Skipper, Swab, Tar | People who work or live at sea (or slang for them) |
| Blue | Tropical Fruits/Vegetables | Bitter Melon, Chayote, Durian, Soursop | Edible plants from tropical climates |
| Purple | ____ Deal | Big, Plea, Raw, Sweetheart | Words that complete common “___ deal” phrases |
Yellow group (easiest): Little Bit
The yellow set collects four words you’d use for a very small amount of something—usually a liquid or a figurative “dose” of an experience:
- Dab – a tiny smear or application, like a dab of paint or ointment.
- Drop – a single bead of liquid, or by extension a very small quantity.
- Splash – in recipes or drinks, a small, imprecise pour.
- Touch – “a touch of” salt, humor, or color: just enough to notice.
None of these are precise measurements. The link is the informal idea of “just a little.” If you tried to park them with water or other liquids, the presence of Touch should have been the tell that the theme is size, not substance.
Green group: Sailor
Green steps out to sea with four ways to refer to people on ships. Some are job titles, others are pure slang:
- Salty Dog – an old-fashioned term for an experienced, often gruff sailor.
- Skipper – the captain or person in command of a boat.
- Swab – a sailor who does cleaning and basic deck work; also a verb for that work.
- Tar – short for “tarpaulin,” historically used as a nickname for British sailors.
If you were tempted to bundle Salty Dog with food or drink (there’s also a cocktail by that name), the presence of clearly nautical terms like Swab and Skipper narrows the reading to seafaring roles and nicknames.
Blue group: Tropical fruits and vegetables
The blue set is where the puzzle starts leaning on food knowledge. All four entries are edible plants with roots in tropical or subtropical regions:
- Bitter Melon – a bumpy, elongated gourd, used in many Asian cuisines and known for its sharp bitterness.
- Chayote – a pale green squash with a mild flavor, common in Latin American and Caribbean cooking.
- Durian – a large, spiky fruit famous for its strong smell and rich, custard-like flesh.
- Soursop – a spiny, green fruit with tangy, creamy pulp, often used in drinks and desserts.
All four can be grouped simply as “tropical fruits/vegetables.” The trick is that they’re not everyday supermarket staples for many players, so this category often falls later in the solve after the clearer language-based sets are out of the way.
Purple group (hardest): “____ Deal” wordplay
Purple finishes the grid with a structural theme rather than a shared meaning. Each word plugs into the blank in a common two-word phrase ending in “deal”:
- Big → big deal
- Plea → plea deal
- Raw → raw deal
- Sweetheart → sweetheart deal
Nothing about the four words themselves obviously ties together—one is size, one is legal jargon, one is about fairness, and one is a term of affection. The only consistent move is to imagine the blank after each and drop “deal” into place. This kind of pattern is typical for the hardest Connections group: the words don’t share a topic so much as a hidden construction.
With those four groups locked in, puzzle #895 breaks down cleanly: a row of tiny quantities, a crew of sailors, a basket of tropical produce, and four different spins on making a deal. If anything on the grid was still nagging at you, it usually comes from trying to force the food items into other categories or missing the “blank plus deal” structure in purple. Once you see those, the wall folds quickly.
