Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a real challenge. Dog lovers might have fun with the purple group, but depending on your accent, some of the answers might not make sense to you. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Mississippi travel.

Green group hint: Hoops superstars.

Blue group hint: Think of the palindrome, “Able was I ere I saw Elba.”

Purple group hint: Woof!

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Navigate through, as a river.

Green group: Multi-time NBA MVPs.

Blue group: Non-palindromic words in a famous palindrome.

Purple group: Homophones of kinds of dogs, familiarly. 

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is navigate through, as a river. The four answers are cross, ford, traverse and wade.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is multi-time NBA MVPs. The four answers are (Larry) Bird, (Steph) Curry, (LeBron) James and (Michael) Jordan.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is non-palindromic words in a famous palindrome. The four answers are able, Elba, saw and was. (“Able was I ere I saw Elba.”)

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is homophones of kinds of dogs, familiarly. The four answers are ciao (chow, as in chow chow), palm (pom, as in Pomeranian), peek (Peke, as in Pekingese) and Pitt (pit, as in pit bull).

Toughest Connections puzzles

We’ve made a note of some of the toughest Connections puzzles so far. Maybe they’ll help you see patterns in future puzzles.

#5: Included “things you can set,” such as mood, record, table and volleyball.

#4: Included “one in a dozen,” such as egg, juror, month and rose.

#3: Included “streets on screen,” such as Elm, Fear, Jump and Sesame.

#2: Included “power ___” such as nap, plant, Ranger and trip.

#1: Included “things that can run,” such as candidate, faucet, mascara and nose.