← Back to today’s gamePUZZLE #183 · FEB 13, 2026

CELL to POOP.

5 moves. 6 equally short routes. Here is one way through.

  1. STARTcellYour starting word
  2. 01bellC → B
  3. 02bollE → O
  4. 03pollB → P
  5. 04poolL → O
  6. 05poopL → P · Made it!

The first move matters.

CELL has 10 valid one-letter neighbors in this dictionary. 5 of them can begin a shortest path:

BELLCALLCULLDELLTELL

Each of these leaves 4 moves to POOP. The other 5 neighbors are valid moves too, but cannot reach the target in the minimum from this starting word.

Follow the changes

The highlighted letter beside each step shows exactly which position changed. This historical solution uses the original puzzle’s dictionary and minimum move count. Other shortest routes can take different intermediate words.

Explore more past puzzles →
Explore shortest alternatives (6 total)

Showing 6 of 6 paths.

CELL → BELL → BOLL → POLL → POOL → POOP

CELL → CALL → PALL → POLL → POOL → POOP

CELL → CULL → PULL → POLL → POOL → POOP

CELL → DELL → DOLL → POLL → POOL → POOP

CELL → TELL → TOLL → POLL → POOL → POOP

CELL → TELL → TOLL → TOOL → POOL → POOP