About Word Ladder
The word ladder is one of the oldest puzzle forms in English, and it survives because the rules fit in a sentence: change one letter, keep a real word, repeat until you arrive. What makes it a puzzle rather than a chore is that the obvious first move is frequently a dead end — the letter you most want to change is the one holding the rest of the chain together.
Our daily climb gives you a start word, an end word, and four blank rungs between them. Unlike most puzzles on this site there is no single correct answer: several chains usually connect the two ends, and any legal one finishes the climb. The board checks legality, not obedience.
Strategy tips
- Work from both ends. The last rung must be one letter from the finish, and that constraint is usually tighter than anything at the top.
- Compare the two words first. Letters that already match tend to stay put; the positions that differ are the ones that must change somewhere.
- Vowels are the cheapest letters to move. Swapping a vowel keeps a word pronounceable far more often than swapping a consonant does.
- If a rung turns pink, the word is either outside our list or more than one letter from its neighbour — the row above it tells you which.
- A chain may never reuse a word. If you find yourself circling back, the detour you need is one rung earlier than you think.
Controls
Type a four-letter word into each rung. Rungs turn green when they are a real word one letter from the rung above. Clear rungs empties the ladder.