← Back to today’s gamePUZZLE #400 · SEP 18, 2026

CARE to POOP.

5 moves. 13 equally short routes. Here is one way through.

  1. STARTcareYour starting word
  2. 01cameR → M
  3. 02campE → P
  4. 03compA → O
  5. 04coopM → O
  6. 05poopC → P · Made it!

The first move matters.

CARE has 24 valid one-letter neighbors in this dictionary. 4 of them can begin a shortest path:

CAMECARPCOREPARE

Each of these leaves 4 moves to POOP. The other 20 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 (13 total)

Showing 13 of 13 paths.

CARE → CAME → CAMP → COMP → COOP → POOP

CARE → CAME → CAMP → COMP → POMP → POOP

CARE → CAME → COME → COMP → COOP → POOP

CARE → CAME → COME → COMP → POMP → POOP

CARE → CAME → COME → POME → POMP → POOP

CARE → CARP → CAMP → COMP → COOP → POOP

CARE → CARP → CAMP → COMP → POMP → POOP

CARE → CORE → COME → COMP → COOP → POOP

CARE → CORE → COME → COMP → POMP → POOP

CARE → CORE → COME → POME → POMP → POOP

CARE → CORE → CORK → COOK → COOP → POOP

CARE → CORE → PORE → POME → POMP → POOP

CARE → PARE → PORE → POME → POMP → POOP