Weaver: the daily word ladder game

Weaver is a word ladder puzzle. You get two words of the same length, a start word and an end word, and your job is to connect them. Each move changes exactly one letter, and every word you make along the way has to be a real English word. The fewer moves you need, the better your result.

A new daily puzzle appears at midnight in your time zone, and everyone who plays on the same date gets the same pair of words. If one puzzle a day is not enough, Weaver Unlimited gives you a fresh ladder whenever you want one. Both come in a four-letter and a five-letter version. The game is free, runs in any modern browser on a phone, tablet or computer, and needs no account and no download.

The idea is older than it looks. Lewis Carroll published puzzles like this in 1879 under the name Doublets, and people have been turning HEAD into TAIL ever since. You can read that story on our word ladder history page.

1. Read both words

   The start word sits at the top of the board and the end word at the bottom. Before typing anything, compare them letter by letter and count how many positions differ.

2. Change one letter

   Type a word that differs from the word above it in exactly one position and press Enter. Letters that already match the end word in the same spot turn green.

3. Reach the end word

   Keep stepping until you type the end word itself. That last word counts as a move too. Then compare your number of moves with the shortest possible ladder.

The full rules, with more examples and an explanation of every message the game can show you, are on the How to play page.

COLD and WARM differ in all four positions, so no ladder can be shorter than four moves. Here is one that does it in exactly four:

CORD puts the R in place, CARD adds the A, WARD brings in the W, and WARM finishes the job. Every step turns one more letter green, which is the best kind of move. Other four-move routes exist too, such as COLD, CORD, WORD, WARD, WARM. Weaver accepts any valid ladder; it only cares how many moves you used.

Most puzzles are not this tidy. Often the shortest route includes a move that does not turn anything green, or even one that changes a letter that was already correct, because the direct word simply does not exist. Spotting those detours is what makes the game interesting.

• Daily, 4 letters

  The classic puzzle on this page. One ladder per day, the same for everyone, with a streak that grows each day you solve it.

• Daily, 5 letters

  A separate daily puzzle with five-letter words. Ladders are usually longer and the word patterns are different, so it plays like a new game.

• Unlimited, 4 letters

  Weaver Unlimited serves a new puzzle whenever you ask for one. Each puzzle has its own link, so you can send a friend exactly the ladder you just played.

• Unlimited, 5 letters

  The same endless format with five-letter ladders, good for practice before the five-letter daily.

Missed a day? The archive lets you go back and play earlier daily puzzles. Archive games are recorded as played, but they do not change your current streak.

Every word you enter is one move, including the end word. When you finish, the result screen shows your number of moves next to the optimal number, which is the length of the shortest possible ladder for that puzzle, and it shows one optimal route so you can see what you missed. Matching the optimal number is the real goal; a longer ladder still counts as solved.

Your statistics track how many daily puzzles you have played and solved, your current and longest streak, and how far above the optimal you usually finish. Unlimited has its own numbers: games played, won and lost, win rate and optimal solves. Everything is stored in your browser on your device, so nothing is uploaded and there is nothing to sign up for.

• Count the differences first. If the two words differ in three positions, the ladder needs at least three moves. If you cannot find a word that fixes one of them, expect a detour.
• Look at the end word's neighbors. Some words can only be reached from a handful of others. Working out the second-to-last word often tells you where the whole ladder has to go.
• Don't protect green letters at all costs. Sometimes the shortest ladder briefly changes a letter that already matches, because that opens a family of words you could not reach otherwise.

There is a lot more where these came from, with worked examples, on the Weaver tips page.

Weaver is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Turkish, Swedish, Indonesian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Czech, Hungarian, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish. Each language has its own word list and its own puzzles built from everyday words in that language, not translations of the English ones. Pick a language from the menu at the top of the page; your statistics are kept separately for each one.