Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #487 from October 8, a little harder than yesterday's puzzle? The difficulty level for this puzzle in the Connections Companion is 34 out of 5

We update the Connections clues and hints daily And if the hints are not enough, see the four answers below, along with the category title and related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #486

There are spoilers for Connections #487 Only those who want to know the answer to today's Connections should read on

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection If not, please continue reading for larger hints Also, if you only want to know the answer, scroll down further

There is a bigger clue And before you put on The Sound of Music, think about how to say cool

Now, what's the answer to today's game #487, Connections?

Drum roll please

It was probably harder than rate, since every word in the grid is three letters

Started by looking at Elf and Saw, wandered the grid to find Her, and got stuck I had forgotten all about the Tom Hanks classic Big, but eventually got there

Saw ill and rad up close, then bad didn't particularly care for the 80s, so I picked hip for cool Strike I hastily swapped hip for fly and got the green group

I looked at the body parts in jump, but didn't trust that they were really in the yellow category Finally, I got the arms, eyes, hips, and legs here

Thus we arrive at “The Sound of Music” and “Do Re Mi” featuring do, fur, saw, and tee I always forget that this song is from this movie because I don't like the movie I always forget that this song belongs to this movie because I don't like this movie

Are you reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 32 out of 5

I was quite disappointed, perhaps unreasonably, that the Powerpuff Girls grouping was not included in today's puzzle Instead, it was a trap Disappointing

Next up was a puzzle with bubbles, styrofoam, and foam on a grid, which was a lot of fun

It was actually here that I discovered the cartoon traps, but with the bubbles gone, I moved on to pitchforks and spins Billboard was a quick find from there; I'm not familiar with Mojo, but apparently it's a British magazine that's been around since 1993

The Green Group's category title burgeon surprised me, as I don't think I've ever seen this word without a past participle (-ed) or genitive (-ing) burgeon “or” will burgeon “Has anyone ever said burgeon ? Something seems wrong with that, but I wonder Anyway, green has blossom, develop, mature, and progress

Purple was also a category that strips out some of the words to find what you are really looking for Another was blah; anyway, this one was about setting the table with boiler (plate), butter (cup), jack (knife), and wither (spoon)