Grab a coffee and see if you can crack today's puzzle before your second cup — no cheating (until you're truly stuck)!
What connects these five?
A yellow fruit that "slips" people up in cartoons
The last name of the 16th U.S. President
A famous tunnel in the UK connecting to France
What you call a baby's first mode of transport, minus the "stroller" — think of the word for a very long, narrow boat used in Venice
The card game term for a hand with no points, or a tennis score of zero
Clue: Four of the five pair with a common word once you strip away the surface meaning. The fifth is the odd one out — see if you can spot it before checking the answer.
Bonus Word Ladder
Change one letter at a time to turn COLD into WARM in four steps (each step must be a real word):
COLD → ???? → ???? → ???? → WARM
Answers
What Connects These Five:
Banana
Lincoln
Channel (Tunnel)
Gondola
Love
The connection: Four of these five combine with BOAT to form a familiar phrase or reference — Banana Boat, Love Boat, a Channel crossed by boat, and a Gondola, which is itself a type of boat. Lincoln is the odd one out; nothing in our sourcing ties it to "boat," so rather than force a fit, we're flagging it plainly as the exception that proves the rule. [Editor's note: if a genuine Lincoln-boat connection exists, it needs a verifiable source before it runs — we couldn't confirm one, so we cut it.]
Word Ladder:
COLD → CORD → CARD → WARD → WARM