Looking for an answer to today's Connections? The Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 3 out of 5

We update our Connections hints and tips daily If the hints are not enough for you, we also provide the answers to all four questions, the category names, and the related words In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #484

There are spoilers for Connection 485 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 help you 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 the answer, scroll down further

A bigger clue is to be aware of Halloween before you read the music

Now, what is the answer to today's game #485 Connection?

Drum roll please

Of course, I have Halloween on my mind, so today I started off cute with bats, pumpkins, spiders, and witches in the yellow group

I purposely tried going down the line, but banned, blocked, denied, and prohibited stuck out as easy as the yellow category But I tried the bar and got a strike

From here I was a bit stuck, as I don't read music and didn't know that accidentals are like the symbols and types found in sheet music So I didn't know where it fit in and assumed it was purple

So I ended up with the purple category and candy apples, candy bars, candy canes, candy corn

Blue in music happened to be notes, rests, and staves I learned a lot, but I don't know if it will be a clue for future sheet music

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

Today's clue initially looked like alphabet soup, so Alyce was surprised to be the first to bring up the purple category She had reviewed “Nope” the other day, so the dreaded famous primates were already in her mind, and scooping up Bubbles, Coco, King Kong, and George was easy (though she dazed over the last one for a minute until she remembered that “Curious” is an adjective, not a first name (I stared at it)

Then came the yellow categories of ding-dong, dodo, yahoo, and yo-yo Alise struck out on her first guess, thinking that this category was a name for people who behaved foolishly, and that Hoot would fall into that category

Next came the blue categories of Beep Beep, Purr, Skrrt, and Vroom, which she missed again because she forgot that Skrrt was an onomatopoeic word before it was a slang word

Thus the blue category became today's memorization fills: har har, hoot, hoop, yook