Working through today’s Connections? Puzzle #881 for Saturday, November 8, 2025 lands at a moderate difficulty — testers put it at 2.8 out of 5 on the Connections Companion. If you want light guidance, start with the one-word reveals below; if you’re ready for bigger spoilers, the solved easy and medium groups are confirmed farther down.
Today’s one-word reveals (light spoilers)
| Category color | Difficulty | Reveal word |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow | 🟨 Easiest | CLOSE |
| Green | 🟩 Medium | GIVE |
| Blue | 🟦 Harder | SIGN |
| Purple | 🟪 Tricky/wordplay | SPY |
Tip: Yellow typically groups straightforward synonyms; purple often leans on wordplay or a shared phrase.
Confirmed groups you can solve now (spoilers)
| Category | Definition | Answer set (4) |
|---|---|---|
| 🟨 Yellow | Block, as an opening | CLOSE, PLUG, SEAL, STOP |
| 🟩 Green | Put forward | DELIVER, GIVE, PRESENT, PRONOUNCE |
How to spot these quickly:
- For Yellow, look for verbs that all work with “the gap” or “a hole” without changing meaning.
- For Green, target versatile action verbs that naturally take the same direct object (e.g., something you can formally “deliver,” “give,” “present,” or “pronounce”).
Blue and Purple guidance without full spoilers
If you’re saving the tougher halves of the grid for last, use these nudges:
- 🟦 Blue: With SIGN in the mix, scan for items that share a tone or classification, not a literal object. This set leans conceptual.
- 🟪 Purple: With SPY on the board, expect a shared phrase or a compound that forms a familiar expression. Purple typically resolves when you test “X the Y” or “[word]+[word]” patterns across the stragglers.
Note: Don’t commit SIGN or SPY too early. Let Yellow and Green clear first; the remaining pool makes the last two patterns much easier to see.
Strategy notes for #881
- Clear synonyms first. Today’s Yellow is pure synonym work; locking it in reduces false overlaps elsewhere.
- Next, group verbs by shared complements. If four different actions can all sensibly apply to the same kind of formal output, you’ve found Green.
- Shuffle the grid before tackling Blue and Purple. Rotating the layout breaks visual ruts and surfaces phrase-based sets.
Once Yellow and Green are out, Blue and Purple should present cleaner lanes — one semantic (a shared attribute), one phrase-driven. Keep your last two guesses flexible and watch for near-miss warnings to swap the outlier.
