TechRadar Posts Oct. 10 Hints and Answers for Connections, Quordle and Strands

For Connections #1217, the 16 words were OUTLINE, SHADOW, FEED, FIGURE, DRAFT, IMAGINE, KICK, NOTIFICATIONS, GATHER, NOTES, UN, MESSAGES, BEAT, SUPPOSE, PROFILE and THESIS. The yellow group was 'useful when writing a paper': DRAFT, NOTES, OUTLINE and THESIS. Green was 'presume': FIGURE, GATHER, IMAGINE and SUPPOSE. Blue was 'social media sections': FEED, MESSAGES, NOTIFICATIONS and PROFILE. Purple was '___boxing': BEAT, KICK, SHADOW and UN. TechRadar's reviewer rated the puzzle Easy and reported a perfect score, writing that the purple group was spotted within seconds but that the 'UN' in UNBOXING was initially read as the abbreviation for the United Nations. The green quartet was the group that went over the reviewer's head.

For Quordle #1720, the answers were SWEAT, THIRD, RURAL and CLASP. The Daily Sequence answers were CARGO, BRAVO, EXACT and STAVE. Hints before the solution said the puzzle contained four different standard vowels, one answer with a repeated letter, no Q, Z, X or J, and no two answers beginning with the same letter. The starting letters were S, T, R and C. TechRadar's reviewer said a win streak ended because of bad luck: taking three guesses to get CLASP left no margin for error, but the reviewer came close and would have solved it with one more line. Quordle was described as one of the original Wordle alternatives and still going strong more than 1,500 games later.

For NYT Strands #951, the theme was 'A slow drizzle.' Clue words that players could use to unlock the in-game hint system were ICER, SLOT, CLEAN, GRAND, MANGLE, TREK and MAYO. The spangram had 14 letters and touched the left side in the third row and the right side in the sixth row. The answers were HONEY, SYRUP, TREACLE, MOLLASSES and GRENADINE, with STICKYANDSWEET as the spangram. TechRadar's reviewer rated the puzzle Hard and used two hints. After needing a hint to start, the reviewer got HONEY but made slow progress, connected MAYO because of a thought about things sold in squeezy containers, and received SYRUP from another hint before understanding the theme. The spangram took a while because SWEET was visible but the word before it was unclear. The reviewer questioned GRENADINE's inclusion in a list of sweet and sticky things, saying butterscotch or caramel would have come earlier.

The same TechRadar pages also carried Friday's answers as reference. Connections #1216 groups were 'decisive victory' with BLOWOUT, ROMP, ROUT and SWEEP; 'controlled by a TV remote' with CHANNEL, INPUT, POWER and VOLUME; 'features of a sports show' with HIGHLIGHTS, RECAP, SCORES and STATS; and 'air ___' with CONDITIONER, GUITAR, KISS and QUOTES. Strands #950 answers were BALDERDASH, RUBBISH, HOOEY, DRIVEL and NONSENSE, with UNBELIEVABLE as the spangram. Quordle #1719 answers were OLDEN, DUNCE, SWATH and HILLY. TechRadar said Connections players can make up to four mistakes and do not technically need to solve the final group because it can be answered by elimination.

Editor's Summary TechRadar's Oct. 10 guides provided hints and full answers for NYT Connections #1217, Quordle #1720 and NYT Strands #951. The solutions covered paper-writing terms, social media sections, boxing prefixes, and sweet-and-sticky foods, with reviewer notes on difficulty and a broken Quordle streak. The pages also included spoiler warnings and prior-day answers for players in different time zones.