HALE to POOP.
5 moves. 10 equally short routes. Here is one way through.
- STARThaleYour starting word
- 01hallE → L
- 02pallH → P
- 03pollA → O
- 04poolL → O
- 05poopL → P · Made it!
The first move matters.
HALE has 19 valid one-letter neighbors in this dictionary. 4 of them can begin a shortest path:
Each of these leaves 4 moves to POOP. The other 15 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 (10 total)
Showing 10 of 10 paths.
HALE → HALL → PALL → POLL → POOL → POOP
HALE → HALT → HOLT → HOOT → HOOP → POOP
HALE → HOLE → HOLD → HOOD → HOOP → POOP
HALE → HOLE → HOLT → HOOT → HOOP → POOP
HALE → HOLE → HOME → POME → POMP → POOP
HALE → HOLE → POLE → POLL → POOL → POOP
HALE → HOLE → POLE → POME → POMP → POOP
HALE → PALE → PALL → POLL → POOL → POOP
HALE → PALE → POLE → POLL → POOL → POOP
HALE → PALE → POLE → POME → POMP → POOP