Word Ladder Solver
Enter a start word and a goal word of the same length (3–6 letters). The solver returns the shortest ladder, counts every shortest ladder there is, or proves and explains that none exists.
Playing instead of solving? Word Ladder has the daily and unlimited game. Stuck on a scramble or a daily word-guess clue? wordsieve.com solves those.
How the solver works
It runs a breadth-first search over the public-domain ENABLE dictionary at the chosen length, entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere. The shortest-ladder count comes from an exhaustive search of the dictionary, capped at 20,000 paths or 300ms, whichever comes first (the count can run into the thousands at 5–6 letters) — and the ladders actually shown are capped separately so the page stays fast.
Measured on the shipped dictionaries, two random words connect through the full dictionary 100% / 97% / 74% / 30% / 12% of the time at 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 letters. The solver covers 3 through 6 for that reason, with an honest “no ladder exists” at 6 when a pair truly has none; 7-letter pairs connect too rarely to search reliably here.
Questions people ask
What does par mean?
Par is the fewest rungs that can join the two words. It comes from searching the whole word list, so par is always reachable when a ladder exists at all.
Why do some pairs have no ladder?
Words fall into families that can reach each other one letter at a time. A word in a small, isolated family may have no path to a word in a different one, however many steps you allow.
Which words count as rungs?
Any word in the public-domain ENABLE list at that length, or the narrower “Everyday” answer list if you choose it. In both, a short list of offensive or adult words is never picked as a rung, though a word you type as the start or goal still works. Known-letter boxes appear after a first solve, one per rung, so you can narrow a crowded result down to a specific ladder.