Want a nudge to keep your streak intact, or just need the full grid to wrap up today’s wall? Below are spoiler‑tiered hints for Connections #878, followed by the complete solution and a brief breakdown of the red herrings that likely caused trouble.

Play today’s Connections (optional)

If you haven’t started and want to solve first, you can play the puzzle on the official page at nytimes.com/games/connections.

Light hints (no category names)

  • Yellow: The theme is about messing something up.
  • Green: Think of the classic whodunit board game with rooms and murder weapons.
  • Blue: Four legendary vocalists working in the same genre.
  • Purple: Add these to “rain” to make new, common words.

Category reveals (no words yet)

  • Yellow: Make a hash of
  • Green: Weapons in the game Clue
  • Blue: Iconic soul singers
  • Purple: Rain____

Full answers for Connections #878

Category Words
Make a hash of Blow, Botch, Butcher, Spoil
Weapons in the game Clue Candlestick, Knife, Rope, Wrench
Iconic soul singers Baker, Flack, Franklin, Knight
Rain____ Bow, Coat, Forest, Maker

Why these groups fit

“Make a hash of” groups four ways to ruin something: you can blow it, botch it, butcher it, or spoil it.

“Weapons in the game Clue” pulls four of the classic implements: Candlestick, Knife, Rope, and Wrench.

“Iconic soul singers” points to last names of genre greats: Anita Baker, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, and Gladys Knight.

“Rain____” forms standard compounds: rainbow, raincoat, rainforest, and rainmaker.

Common pitfalls and red herrings

  • Butcher, Baker, Candlestick, Maker look like they belong together by rhyme, but they’re split across three different groups here.
  • Coat can read as a verb or a thin layer, but it’s doing compound‑word duty with “rain.”
  • Rope might tempt as a verb (“to rope in”), yet it’s firmly a Clue weapon today.
  • Last names alone can be tough to place—Baker, Flack, Franklin, and Knight are all soul luminaries, not random surnames.

Difficulty snapshot

Testers pegged today’s wall at a moderate‑to‑tricky 3.5 out of 5, with the nursery‑rhyme misdirection and overlapping meanings doing most of the damage.

If you cleared this one, your best bet tomorrow is to watch for multi‑use words that pull double duty as both verbs and noun compounds—and keep an eye out for surnames that point to a shared field.