NYT Connections Answers Today: October 10, 2026 Strategy

How to Approach This Connections Grid

This grid rewards a disciplined scan rather than rapid grouping. Several entries look interchangeable at first, especially FIGURE, IMAGINE, GATHER, and SUPPOSE. The key is to test whether a suspected category explains all four words with equal precision.

A reliable order is:

1. Spot the most concrete category.
2. Remove those words and reassess the leftovers.
3. Look for grammatical or phrase-based patterns.
4. Save the most abstract group for last.

Group One: Useful When Writing a Paper

OUTLINE, DRAFT, NOTES, and THESIS all belong to the workflow of producing an academic paper.

The strongest clue is THESIS, which points directly toward academic writing. Once it is paired with OUTLINE, DRAFT, and NOTES, the category becomes specific rather than merely related to writing in general.

The trap is PROFILE, which can describe a written piece, and FIGURE, which can appear in a paper. Neither is a core writing-stage term in the same way as the four selected entries.

Group Two: Presume

FIGURE, IMAGINE, GATHER, and SUPPOSE can each mean presume in the right sentence.

This is the grid’s most semantic group, so it is easy to overlook. Consider the substitutions:

• I figure means “I presume” or “I assume.”
• Imagine can introduce an assumed situation.
• Gather can mean “infer” or “understand from the evidence.”
• Suppose is a direct synonym for “presume.”

The tactical lesson is to avoid demanding identical parts of speech or identical sentence patterns. Connections categories sometimes rely on close meanings rather than exact dictionary matches.

Group Three: Social Media Sections

FEED, NOTIFICATIONS, MESSAGES, and PROFILE are familiar sections or features found on social media platforms.

FEED is the anchor: it strongly suggests a social platform. From there, NOTIFICATIONS, MESSAGES, and PROFILE form a natural interface set.

The overlap comes from NOTES and MESSAGES. Both involve written communication, but NOTES belongs more cleanly with paper-writing tools, while MESSAGES is the unmistakable platform feature.

Group Four: ___BOXING

SHADOW, KICK, UN, and BEAT complete familiar phrases when followed by or preceded by BOXING.

The clearest pair is SHADOWBOXING. KICKBOXING is equally recognizable. The less immediate entries are UNBOXING and BEATBOXING, which complete the set through compound terms or established activity names.

This is the classic purple-group construction: not every word relates to boxing in the same conceptual way. Instead, each word forms a phrase with the shared fragment. Check the grammar and spelling before submitting, especially with short entries such as UN.

The Main Traps

Writing Versus Social Media

NOTES and MESSAGES are both text-based, but their contexts separate them. One supports a paper; the other is a platform feature.

Inference Versus Imagination

FIGURE, IMAGINE, and SUPPOSE can all suggest mental activity. Their shared function as assumptions matters more than their surface meanings.

Literal Meaning Versus Wordplay

The boxing group does not describe four boxing techniques. It uses a shared phrase fragment, so testing compound words is essential when a final cluster feels unusually loose.

A Repeatable Solving Method

1. Circle words that belong to a clear domain, such as academic writing or social platforms.
2. Test four-word groups by asking whether one word is merely adjacent rather than truly connected.
3. Remove a confirmed group and inspect the remaining words for synonym sets.
4. When the leftovers look awkward, search for a shared prefix or suffix.
5. Before submitting, verify that every word satisfies the category in the same way.

The final breakthrough comes from treating the grid as four different logic problems: a writing workflow, a synonym cluster, a platform interface, and a phrase-completion set. Once those mechanisms are separated, the apparent overlap disappears and the solution locks into place.