← Back to today’s gamePUZZLE #343 · JUL 23, 2026

TILE to POOP.

5 moves. 12 equally short routes. Here is one way through.

  1. STARTtileYour starting word
  2. 01pileT → P
  3. 02pillE → L
  4. 03pollI → O
  5. 04poolL → O
  6. 05poopL → P · Made it!

The first move matters.

TILE has 15 valid one-letter neighbors in this dictionary. 4 of them can begin a shortest path:

PILETILLTIMETOLE

Each of these leaves 4 moves to POOP. The other 11 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 (12 total)

Showing 12 of 12 paths.

TILE → PILE → PILL → POLL → POOL → POOP

TILE → PILE → POLE → POLL → POOL → POOP

TILE → PILE → POLE → POME → POMP → POOP

TILE → TILL → PILL → POLL → POOL → POOP

TILE → TILL → TOLL → POLL → POOL → POOP

TILE → TILL → TOLL → TOOL → POOL → POOP

TILE → TIME → TOME → POME → POMP → POOP

TILE → TOLE → POLE → POLL → POOL → POOP

TILE → TOLE → POLE → POME → POMP → POOP

TILE → TOLE → TOLL → POLL → POOL → POOP

TILE → TOLE → TOLL → TOOL → POOL → POOP

TILE → TOLE → TOME → POME → POMP → POOP