Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #506 from October 29 is astronomically harder than yesterday's puzzle, and the Connections companion rates the difficulty of this puzzle at 3.8 out of 5.

We update our Connections hints and tips daily. And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four solutions along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in another time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #505.

There are spoilers for connection 506. Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's connection.

Or 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:

These hints should at least help you find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you just want the answer, scroll down further.

There are bigger clues: for today, remember your Shakespeare, who is training to be your doctor, how to evaluate baseball cards, and get a little square.

Now, the answer to today's game #506 Connection.

Drum roll please.

I saw difficulty 3.8, and sure enough, I was a little scared today, and then I saw countryman and Roman. My Shakespearean bells rang. From there it took me a bit of time trying to remember the lines from the play “Julius Caesar.”

This is the line spoken by Marc Antony in Act III, where he actually says “fellow man” instead of “man.”

By defeating Blue early, this puzzle was made a little easier than rated.

Green's medical role caught my attention, but that may be because I grew up in a medical family. The film features doctors at various levels from training to career: attending, fellow, intern, and resident.

Here we finally get to the yellow grouping, and the mint and original reminded me of baseball cards. I briefly considered rating them perfect, but decided against it and instead went with unused and new. It worked.

Purple is a fun fill with Perfect Square, Pocket Square, Times Square, and Town Square.

I'm reading this late in the day ... According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 2.3 out of 5.

Today's puzzle took a dive in difficulty, but there were enough red herrings between the yellow and purple categories that Alyce struck out a few times trying to connect all the words you would hear in a magic act.

When it came to a dead end, she looked at Pandora, Tidal, and Audible and realized that Shazam was about apps, not what a magician says after pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

Then came the blue category. It did not occur to her that all of these verbs came from a particular church vow.

Alyce was still convinced that abracadabra and presto must be related, but since spelling was the only magical-sounding word left, she was stumped. But when she saw “Please” and “Thank You,” she finally pinpointed the Connection Crew's cheeky play on words. They are truly magic words.

The green category remained and it was easy to figure out the links between Mean, Signify, Spell, and Suggest.