Tools

Word Ladder Solver

Stuck on a Poople? Give us the starting word and we’ll find the shortest way to POOP, or to any other word you like.

How the word ladder solver works

A word ladder turns one word into another by changing a single letter at a time, with a real word at every step. The solver searches outward from the target one step at a time. The first time it reaches your starting word, the route it has found is as short as a route can be. It runs on a list of 3,859 four-letter words, and it leaves out crude words so none can show up as a step.

Solving Poople by hand

Every Poople ladder ends at POOP, so it helps to work backwards. These are the words one letter away from POOP in our list, which means they are the only possible last steps: COOP, GOOP, HOOP, LOOP, PLOP, POMP, POOD, POOH, POOL, POOR, PROP.

• Work backwards. Pick the last-step word that looks closest to your starting word and aim for it.
• Look for words with a double O. Most shortest routes pass through one of them.
• Letters that already match POOP are not locked. Changing one back can still be the shortest way.
• If a route stalls, try swapping a vowel. It often opens a new neighbourhood of words.

Want today’s hints without the full path? Open the Poople answer page and take them one at a time, or play The Poople Daily, our own daily puzzle.

Questions

Does it work for the Poople game at poople.io?

Yes. Type the starting word you see there and leave the target as POOP. Our word list may differ a little from theirs, so if a word is refused over there, try another route from the list.

Can it solve any two words?

Any two four-letter words in our list, as long as a chain of real words connects them. Change the target to try it.

Why does it say a word isn’t in the list?

The list is a standard Scrabble dictionary. Names, abbreviations, slang and crude words are not in it.

Is the route really the shortest?

For our word list, yes. There is often more than one shortest route, and the solver shows several.