Working on today’s Connections and want a clean nudge before the full solution? Below are quick, spoiler-light hints followed by the exact categories and word groups for Puzzle #868 (Sunday, October 26, 2025). If you’d rather solve it first, open the game at nytimes.com/games/connections.

NYT Connections #868 quick hints (no spoilers)

Category color Nudge hint
Yellow Instrument families/classifications
Green Words from a famed boxer’s quote
Blue Types of competitions
Purple Words with “small-sounding” suffixes

Single-word reveals (light spoilers)

Category color One included word
Yellow WIND
Green BEE
Blue BEAUTY
Purple DOGGY

NYT Connections #868 answers (full categories)

Color Category Words
Yellow Kinds of instruments Brass, Percussion, String, Wind
Green Words in a famous Muhammad Ali quote Bee, Butterfly, Float, Sting
Blue Kinds of contests Beauty, Popularity, Staring, Talent
Purple Words with diminutive suffixes Doggy, Droplet, Kitchenette, Starling

Why these sets fit

Instrument families (Yellow): Brass, percussion, string, and wind are standard classifications used to group musical instruments by how they produce sound.

Ali quote (Green): “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” is the well-known phrasing; all four words appear in or align with that line.

Contest types (Blue): Beauty contests, popularity contests, staring contests, and talent contests are all common forms of competition.

Diminutive suffixes (Purple): Each word ends in a suffix often used to indicate smallness or affection: -y/-ie (doggy), -let (droplet), -ette (kitchenette), and -ling (starling).

Today’s difficulty

Editor rating: 2.5 out of 5. Expect a generally approachable wall with some misdirection among the contest types and the diminutive suffix group.

That’s the wall. If you’re protecting a streak, use the nudge table first, then peek at the single-word reveals before the full answers.