PUZZLE #457 · NOV 13, 2026

MAIN to POOP.

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

  1. STARTmainYour starting word
  2. 01lainM → L
  3. 02loinA → O
  4. 03loonI → O
  5. 04loopN → P
  6. 05poopL → P · Made it!

The first move matters.

MAIN has 21 valid one-letter neighbors in this dictionary. 5 of them can begin a shortest path:

LAINMAILMAWNPAINRAIN

Each of these leaves 4 moves to POOP. The other 16 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. The sequence above is computed from the same dictionary as the game. Other shortest routes can take different intermediate words.

Compare routes in the solver →
Explore shortest alternatives (6 total)

Showing 6 of 6 paths.

MAIN → LAIN → LOIN → LOON → LOOP → POOP

MAIN → MAIL → MOIL → MOOL → MOOP → POOP

MAIN → MAIL → MOIL → MOOL → POOL → POOP

MAIN → MAWN → MOWN → MOON → MOOP → POOP

MAIN → PAIN → PAIS → POIS → POOS → POOP

MAIN → RAIN → ROIN → ROON → ROOP → POOP