TechRadar Publishes Oct. 12 Answers for NYT Connections, Strands and Quordle

For Connections #1219, TechRadar said the 16 starting words were CALAMARI, MANDARIN, STATE, ABBREVIATION, NICKNAME, HANDLE, SHAPE, WEATHER, CONDITION, CONTRACTION, SITUATION, BEAR, ALKYLAMIDE, STAND, ELISION and MELAMINE. The yellow group was STATUS, comprising CONDITION, SHAPE, SITUATION and STATE. The green group was TOLERATE, comprising BEAR, HANDLE, STAND and WEATHER. The blue group was WORD SHORTENINGS, OFTEN, comprising ABBREVIATION, CONTRACTION, ELISION and NICKNAME. The purple group was WORDS MADE USING U.S. POSTAL ABBREVIATIONS, comprising ALKYLAMIDE, CALAMARI, MANDARIN and MELAMINE.

TechRadar rated the Connections puzzle hard. The author said he scored a perfect game but got through on hunches and luck and never had a strong hold on the categories. He said living and growing up outside the US put him at a disadvantage for the purple group, and that ELISION was a word he had not heard before, though ABBREVIATION, CONTRACTION and NICKNAME seemed to go together.

For Strands #953, TechRadar said the theme was 'In a manner of speaking.' The answers were PARLANCE, JARGON, VERNACULAR, LINGO and DIALECT. The spangram was TURNOFPHRASE, with 12 letters, touching the left side at the eighth row and the right side at the fourth row. The clue words were SLING, RANGER, FOUL, GONE, LONG and RACON. TechRadar rated the puzzle easy. The author said he got the spangram second, expected to find 'slang' on the board but instead used the non-game word 'sling,' and called DIALECT fascinating.

For Quordle #1722, TechRadar listed the four answers as HELLO, BELOW, RIGHT and SLANT. The hints said there were four different standard vowels, one answer had a repeated letter, none of Q, Z, X or J appeared, no answers started with the same letter, and the starting letters were H, B, R and S. The Daily Sequence answers were OPERA, TULLE, FEVER and DEMUR. The author said every word was the most expected and the game was what he needed after losing his win stream on Saturday.

TechRadar also provided background on the games. It said Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going after more than 1,500 games. NYT Connections challenges players to find groups of four items that share something in common, with green rated easy, yellow a little harder, blue often tough and purple usually very difficult; players can make up to four mistakes and do not technically need to solve the final group because of elimination. NYT Strands is the New York Times' word game after Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections, has been running for a year and is playable on the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.

The guides also included previous-day answers as reference. For Connections #1218 on Sunday, Oct. 11, TechRadar listed PUT TO USE as APPLY, HARNESS, UTILIZE and WIELD; MONTHLY BILLS as CABLE, ELECTRICITY, INTERNET and PHONE; THINGS YOU MIGHT FIND IN A GLOVE COMPARTMENT as GLOVES, ICE SCRAPER, MAP and REGISTRATION; and ENDING IN GAMBITS as EMPLOY, PATRICK, PERUSE and SYNTACTIC. For Strands #952, the answers were PAGER, ICEBOX, INKWELL, TYPEWRITER and TELEGRAM, with the spangram OLDFASHIONED. Quordle #1721 answers were LILAC, INLET, TRIAD and SHAPE.