Connections Hint
Puzzle #1222 · October 15, 2026

NYT Connections Hints for October 15, 2026

Start with the spoiler-free hints. Go deeper only when you need to. Reveal answers on your own terms.

Thursday, October 15, 2026
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Today’s 16 Puzzle Words
Tap any word to see how it’s used in this puzzle
FOOTFORGEVOLLEYCUREDRYPICKLEBASKETRUNRACINEBOTTOMSMOKECANNONGOALBASETOUCHDOWNFOUNDATION

Spoiler-Free Hints

Three levels — warmer as you read down
i Ultra safe

A direction for each group — no names given.

  • Old-fashioned kitchen wisdom for keeping things good to eat.
  • Four moments that make a crowd roar and a number change.
  • Four words for whatever everything rests upon.
  • Something odd links these four — nothing to do with what they mean.
ii Warmer

What kind of thinking each group asks for.

  • You'll need a bit of culinary know-how — ways to keep food from spoiling before refrigeration.
  • Basic sports knowledge required — the ways a scoreboard number can go up.
  • Think about structure and anatomy — the parts of things that carry the weight.
  • A spelling trick is at work — one letter separates these from something in nature.
iii Mild spoilers

Pointed nudges on the words built to fool you.

  • All four are preservation techniques that keep food edible for months without a fridge.
  • Each is a scoring play in a different sport — a way to add points during a game.
  • Every word means the same thing: the supporting underside of an object, structure, or body.
  • Swap one letter in each and you land on a landform — a low, scooped-out feature of the earth.

Today’s Trap Words

The words engineered to mislead

Every Connections board plants a few decoys. Here are today’s, and why they pull you the wrong way.

PICKLE

It reads like the paddle sport everyone is talking about, so solvers file it with the scoring words instead of the kitchen techniques.

VOLLEY

Pure sports bait — it sounds like the game played over a net, and it sits right beside other athletic-sounding tiles.

BASE

A ballplayer's landmark first, a supporting layer second. It feels like it belongs with the scoring plays until the structure words claim it.

FORGE

An action verb that slides comfortably beside the other imperative-looking verbs, hiding the fact that it's a disguised piece of terrain.

Connections Answers — October 15, 2026

Tap any group to reveal it
Answers are hidden — tap a group to peek, or reveal all at once.
WAYS TO PRESERVE FOOD
SMOKE · DRY · PICKLE · CURE
Tap to reveal
THINGS YOU CAN SCORE IN SPORTS
BASKET · RUN · GOAL · TOUCHDOWN
Tap to reveal
LOWEST PART
FOOT · BASE · FOUNDATION · BOTTOM
Tap to reveal
LOW LANDFORMS WITH A LETTER CHANGED
VOLLEY · CANNON · FORGE · RACINE
Tap to reveal
SEE ALSO:
NYT Wordle hints for October 15, 2026 NYT Pips hints for October 15, 2026 NYT Strands hints for October 15, 2026

Category Breakdown — Puzzle #1222

Why each group works — not just what it is

WAYS TO PRESERVE FOOD

Four verbs that all describe keeping food edible long-term, from salting and air-drying to brining and smoking. It's the friendly opener — everyday kitchen knowledge that almost everyone can access without straining.

THINGS YOU CAN SCORE IN SPORTS

BASKET, GOAL, RUN and TOUCHDOWN each name something a player can convert into points. The group hides two impostors nearby: PICKLE and VOLLEY sound athletic but have nothing to do with scoring.

LOWEST PART

BASE, BOTTOM, FOOT and FOUNDATION all name the underside or supporting layer of a thing — a lamp, a page, a mountain, a house. BASE and FOOT are quietly stolen back from the sports group, which is where the misdirection lives.

LOW LANDFORMS WITH A LETTER CHANGED

Each word is one letter away from a natural depression: a canyon, a gorge, a ravine, a valley. The disguises are deliberately ordinary — a weapon, a workshop, a Wisconsin city, a burst of tennis shots — so the geography only surfaces once you start swapping letters.

Word Guide — All 16 Puzzle Words

What each word means in this puzzle
FOOT
The base of an object — the end of a table leg, the bottom of a mountain, the last line of a poem. Also the body part you stand on.
FORGE
To shape metal using heat and hammer blows, or the workshop where that happens. One letter away from a narrow, rocky chasm.
VOLLEY
A rapid burst of many things at once — gunfire, questions, or shots hit back and forth. Here it is one letter away from a broad, low stretch of land.
CURE
To treat meat or fish with salt, sugar, or time so it stays edible; the same word also means to make someone healthy again.
DRY
Removing moisture from food so it keeps — the principle behind jerky, dried fruit, and sun-dried tomatoes.
PICKLE
To preserve vegetables in brine or vinegar; as a noun, the brined cucumber itself. It also sounds like a fast-growing paddle sport.
BASKET
In basketball, the hoop itself, and by extension the points earned by dropping the ball through it.
RUN
In baseball and cricket, the basic unit of scoring. Outside sports, it simply means to move quickly on foot.
RACINE
A city on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. Here it is one letter away from a narrow, stream-cut gully in the landscape.
BOTTOM
The lowest surface or point of anything, the opposite of top. It can also refer to a boat's hull or the rear of the body.
SMOKE
Exposing food to smoldering wood, which flavors it and helps it last. Also the visible plume rising from a fire.
CANNON
A large mounted gun that fires heavy projectiles. In this puzzle it sits one letter away from a deep, steep-sided landform.
GOAL
In soccer and hockey, both the netted frame and the point awarded for putting the ball or puck inside it.
BASE
The part something rests on, like the pedestal of a lamp or the bottom of a column. It also names a station a runner must touch in baseball.
TOUCHDOWN
The celebrated scoring play in American football, achieved by carrying or catching the ball into the end zone.
FOUNDATION
The sturdy layer beneath a building that transfers its weight into the ground. Figuratively, the underlying basis of an idea or argument.

Puzzle Design Analysis

Why the editor constructed it this way

Wyna Liu scatters the sports answers from corner to corner, so no adjacent run of tiles ever signals the group. The craft lies in the double life of BASE and FOOT, which pull solvers toward scoring while quietly belonging to structure. Purple is the masterstroke: every landform arrives disguised as an unremarkable word, and PICKLE and VOLLEY impersonate sports to keep that false trail warm.

Difficulty & Analysis

How tough today’s board really plays
Overall
5.3/10
Most deceptive
VOLLEY

a textbook decoy

Hardest group
LANDFORM WORDPLAY

requires lateral thinking

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