Word Ladder
Climb from one word to another changing a single letter at a time. Always-solvable puzzles, plus a solver that connects any two words by the shortest route.
Both words must be the same length and both must be in the dictionary. The route found is always the shortest one that exists.
How to climb one
- Change exactly one letter at a time, and every rung must be a real word. No rearranging, no adding or removing letters.
- Work from both ends. Look at which letters differ between the two words and try changing the one that leaves the most options — vowels usually beat consonants.
- You cannot use the same word twice. A ladder that loops is not a ladder.
- The answer shown is always the shortest route that exists, found by searching outward one step at a time. If you got there in more steps, you still solved it.
- The dictionary holds about 11,000 common English words, so a route that needs an obscure word will not be found. Around 3% of four-letter words have no neighbours at all and can never appear in a ladder.
How to use
- Change exactly one letter to make a new real word.
- Type each rung and press Enter until you reach the target.
- Or switch tabs to connect any two words of the same length.
Frequently asked questions
Is every puzzle solvable?
Yes. Rather than picking two words and hoping, the generator picks a start, measures how far every other word is from it, and then chooses a target at the difficulty you asked for. A route therefore exists by construction, and the answer shown is the shortest one.
What if I take a longer route?
It still counts as a solve, and the page says so — it only mentions the shortest length so you know one exists. Hints are recalculated from where you actually are rather than from the printed answer, so taking your own route never leaves the hints useless.
Can I reuse a word?
No. A ladder that revisits a rung is a loop, and allowing it would make almost every puzzle trivially "solvable" by wandering.
Why can it not connect my two words?
Usually because the route needs a word the dictionary does not have — it holds about 11,000 common English words rather than everything. Some words are also genuinely isolated: around 3% of four-letter words differ from no other word by a single letter, so they can never appear in a ladder at all.
How does it find the shortest route?
By searching outward one step at a time from the starting word, so the first time it reaches the target is by definition the shortest way. A search that dives deep instead would find a route that works but may be several rungs longer, which makes a correct solver think they went wrong.
Who invented this?
The puzzle is usually credited to Lewis Carroll, who called them Doublets and set them as a Christmas game in 1877. The rules have not changed since.
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