Word Ladder
NEWWorks on both desktop and mobile. Tap or click to play.
About This Game
Play Word Ladder free online. Change one letter at a time to turn the start word into the target word. A classic puzzle invented by Lewis Carroll.
How to play Word Ladder
Objective: Win by turning the four-letter start word into the target word, changing exactly one letter at a time so every rung you add is a real word from the game's list.
Word Ladder ships with four fixed puzzles, shown as buttons across the top: COLD to WARM, LEAD to GOLD, HATE to LOVE, and HEAD to TAIL. Tap any button to load one. Every word is exactly four letters. The start word becomes the first rung of your ladder, and a draft row of four letter slots sits below it holding the word you will edit into the next rung.
To make a move, tap a draft slot to select it, shown by a green outline, then tap a letter on the keyboard. Picking a letter fills that slot and moves the cursor one place right, stopping at the fourth slot. When the four letters spell the word you want, press Submit Word. Reset Row rewrites the draft back to the last accepted word.
Every submit is checked three ways. The word must differ from the rung above by exactly one letter, it must be in the game's word list, and it cannot repeat a word already on the ladder. Break any rule and a message explains why while nothing is added. Reach the target and its rung turns gold, a Ladder Complete banner shows your step count, and Next Puzzle loads the next one. There is no timer, score, or lives; the Solved figure records the highest puzzle finished.
Tips and strategy
Reset Row after a miss
A rejected guess leaves your failed letters in the draft. Tap Reset Row to snap all four slots back to the last accepted word, then change only the one slot you meant to. It stops you altering two letters by mistake.
Try a vowel swap
Many list words branch on the vowel rather than a consonant, like LATE to LAVE or LANE to LINE. When consonant changes dead-end, cycle the vowel slot through A, E, I, O and U to find the rung the consonant path was hiding.
Tap the slot first
Each keyboard pick advances the cursor rightward, so tapping letters freely overwrites slots you wanted to keep. To change one position only, tap that exact slot first, choose the letter, then submit before the cursor drifts into other slots.
Aim letters at the target
Look at which letters the target needs and steer toward them. Going COLD to WARM you eventually need the W and the M, so favor rungs like CORD, WORD and WARD that lock in a target letter for good.
The history of Word Ladder
The word ladder was invented by Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, who called his version Doublets. He devised it in the late 1870s and later ran it as a column in Vanity Fair, where readers raced to transform one word into another using the fewest steps. His two rules are the ones this game still uses: change one letter at a time, and every step must be a real word.
Frequently asked questions
Does the word ladder have a timer, score, or lives?
No. There is no clock, no point total, and no lives to lose. A rejected word is simply not added and you try again with no penalty. The only number tracked is the step count, shown on the Ladder Complete banner at the end.
Why was my real word rejected?
The game only accepts words from its own built-in list of four-letter words. A valid English word that is not on that list is rejected, with a message naming it. Stay on words that bridge start and target.
Can I change two letters in one step?
No. Each new word must differ from the word above it by exactly one letter. If your draft changes two or more positions, submitting shows a message that only one letter may change per step, and nothing is added. Submitting the word above is blocked too.
What does the Solved counter mean?
It shows the highest puzzle number you have completed, stored in your browser's local storage so it persists between visits on the same device. Because it keeps the maximum reached, finishing a later puzzle raises it even if you skipped earlier ones.