Weaver 5 letters: the daily five-letter ladder
The same rules with five-letter words, and a new puzzle every day at midnight in your time zone.
What changes with five letters
The rules are the same as in the four-letter game: change one letter per move, make a real word every time, and finish by typing the end word. What changes is the shape of the puzzle. There are far more five-letter words in English, but each one has fewer neighbors, because a random one-letter change is less likely to land on a real word. Ladders tend to be longer, and the optimal route often runs through words you would not think of first.
Five-letter words also have more structure. Many of them start or end with a consonant pair such as ST, CH, SH, BR or CK, and those pairs usually change one letter at a time, not both at once. Plurals help too: a five-letter word ending in S is often a four-letter word plus S, which gives you a bridge into a whole new family.
A short five-letter ladder
STICK and STONE differ in three positions, yet the shortest ladder takes four moves:
STOCK puts the O in place. The next two moves borrow an R that appears in neither word: STORK and STORE are what make the E reachable, and STORE then turns into STONE. A three-move ladder would need STICE or STONK, and neither is a word. That is typical of five-letter puzzles: when the direct letter will not fit, a temporary letter often will.
Today's four-letter puzzle is on the main daily page, and you can practice five-letter ladders without waiting for tomorrow in Unlimited five letters. For more five-letter strategy, see the tips page.
Five-letter daily: questions
Is the five-letter daily a different puzzle from the four-letter one?
Yes. The four-letter and five-letter dailies are two separate puzzles with their own word pairs, and both change at midnight in your local time zone. You can play one, the other, or both every day.
Do the two daily puzzles share one streak?
No. Each word length keeps its own statistics and its own streak, so missing the five-letter puzzle does not break your four-letter streak.
How long are five-letter ladders?
The shortest route for a five-letter daily usually takes between four and eight moves, a little longer on average than the four-letter puzzle. The result screen always shows the optimal number for that day.
