Word Ladder

What is Word Ladder?

Word Ladder is the word puzzle Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, published in 1879 under the name Doublets. You get two words of the same length and turn the first into the second by changing a single letter at a time, and every word on the way has to be a real one. COLD becomes CORD, then CARD, WARD and finally WARM: four steps, one letter each.

Every ladder here has a par, the shortest ladder there is, found by the game before you start, and no ladder through the whole dictionary is shorter. You play with Romanian or English words, on three levels, and every day brings a Daily Ladder, the same for everyone, so times compare directly on the leaderboard.

How to play Word Ladder

The start word sits on the top rung and the target on the bottom one. Between them, empty rungs show how many steps par allows.

• Writing a word. The next word starts as a copy of the word above. Tap the letter you want to change and type the new one, or simply type the whole word, then press the enter key. Backspace puts back the letter that was there.
• The rules. Each step changes exactly one letter, keeps the length and lands on a real word that is not on your ladder yet. A word that breaks a rule shakes and the line under the ladder says why.
• Undo and going back. Undo takes back the last word. Tap an earlier word twice to take the ladder back to it.
• Hints. A hint writes the next word of a shortest ladder in place, ready to play, and adds 30 seconds. If your ladder took a wrong turn, it first takes you back to the word where a shorter way starts.
• The score. Your score is your time, plus 20 seconds for every step over par and 30 seconds for every hint. Lower is better.
• Levels. Easy uses four-letter words with a par of 3 or 4. Medium uses four or five letters, and Hard five-letter words with a par of 5 to 7.
• Languages. Outside the Daily, tap RO or EN to switch between Romanian and English words. In Romanian, diacritics do not count: A stands for Ă and Â, I for Î, S for Ș and T for Ț.

Tips and strategy

1. Start from the target. Compare the two words letter by letter. Every letter they already share is one you may never need to touch.
2. Lock letters in place. A step that puts one of the target's letters in its final place is usually a good step. The target row lights up those letters for you.
3. Expect detours. Some ladders need a letter that is in neither word. STONE reaches SWIFT in six steps (STORE, SHORE, SHORT, SHIRT, SHIFT) although only four letters differ.
4. Vowels open doors. When you are stuck, try the vowels first: changing the vowel of a word opens far more words than changing a consonant.
5. Undo is cheap. Going back costs nothing but time, so try a path, and if it closes, return to the last word that still had choices.

Frequently asked questions

Is Word Ladder free?

Yes. Like every game on Play, it runs free in your browser, with no download and no account.

Why is my word not accepted?

Either it changes more or fewer than one letter, or it is already on your ladder, or it is not in the dictionary. Proper names, abbreviations and slang do not count. The Romanian dictionary holds every inflected form, so plurals and verb forms are fine.

What is par?

Par is the length of the shortest ladder from the start word to the target. The game finds it before you begin, through everyday words, and checks that no rarer word makes a shorter one.

Can I beat par?

No: par is already the shortest ladder in the dictionary. You can match it, and a ladder on par without a hint is the best result there is.

What does a hint do?

It shows the next word of a shortest ladder from where you are, already written in, and adds 30 seconds to your time. You get one hint per word: the button waits until the ladder moves.

What is the Daily Ladder?

Every day everyone gets the same Medium ladder, in Romanian or in English depending on the language you play in, so the times on the leaderboard compare directly.