One small change at a time.

From the starting word to POOP

A word ladder is a chain of words. In this edition every word has four letters, and neighboring words differ in exactly one position. Your starting word changes each day; the target stays POOP.

Type an entire four-letter word using your physical keyboard or the on-screen keys. Press Enter to submit it. Backspace edits your current guess. An accepted word becomes the starting point for your next move.

BARN → BORN changes only A to O. BARN → BOON changes two positions, so it is not a valid single move. Entering BARN again immediately changes no positions and is also rejected.

Read the colors, keep your options

Brown tiles have the same letter in the same position as POOP. They do not show which letter you just changed, and they do not lock the letter. A gray tile can become brown later. A brown tile can become gray again if you change it.

The color is a clue about spelling, not a measure of graph distance. Two words that look similar may have very different useful neighbors.

A complete five-move example

1. STARTbarnYour starting word
2. 01bornA → O
3. 02boonR → O
4. 03goonB → G
5. 04goopN → P
6. 05poopG → P · Made it!

The starting row is move zero. BORN is move one; POOP is move five. Every link is in this edition’s dictionary, and the minimum for BARN is 5 moves.

Notice the useful bridge BOON. From there GOON gives access to GOOP, which is one move from the target. Other equally short paths may exist; matching this exact route is not required.

Three ways to think about your next move

Try the vowels

Swapping one vowel often opens a familiar word family. BARN and BORN show the idea. Write out neighboring words mentally before committing to one. There is no timer penalty.

Work backward as well

POOL, LOOP, GOOP and HOOP are all a single change from POOP. Looking for a route to one of these can make the destination feel closer. A valid route through familiar words is a good place to start, even when it is not the shortest.

Allow a detour, but count its cost

POOL → COOL is legal even though it loses a brown tile. COOL → POOL → POOP gets you home, but adds two moves compared with POOL → POOP. A detour is an option, not a rule that every puzzle needs.

Your score, and what “Perfect” means

Every accepted word adds one move. An invalid submission adds none and stays in the input so you can fix it. Repeating an earlier word is allowed before completion and still counts. You cannot undo an accepted move.

We calculate the minimum with a breadth-first search of this version’s dictionary. Finish in that many moves for Perfect. Your extra moves are your actual moves minus the minimum. Daily statistics record your first completion once, including after a refresh or in a second tab.

Keep exploring

Use Unlimited to experiment without touching your daily streak. The answer archive opens each puzzle after its day ends. The four-letter solver can explain another pair of words, including how many equally short routes exist.