Feetle Solver

How the Feetle solver works

The Feetle solver is a hint helper, not an answer machine. Type the four-letter word you're stuck on and press Get hints. It tells you three things and nothing more: how many steps you still need to reach FEET, which letter to change first, and what the next word looks like with that one letter hidden. Hint 1 and hint 2 stay folded until you open them, so you can take as little help as you like.

It never prints the next word, the whole ladder or a list of routes. Working out the missing letter is still your job, and that's the fun part of a word ladder.

Try MOON. The Feetle solver says 5 steps, hint 1 says change letter 3, and hint 2 shows MO_N. The search runs in your browser over our 3,852 words, so the step count is the true shortest, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

A Feetle solver for any start word

Our daily puzzle is our own, and other Feetle sites pick different start words. That doesn't matter here. Whatever site you're playing on, type in the word on your screen and the solver gives hints from there. It doesn't have to be the start word: put in the last word you reached and the hints pick up from that point.

FEET is the default target, but Change target accepts any four-letter word. Poople players can set it to POOP, and teachers can give a class hints on a ladder from COLD to WARM without handing out the answer.

One hint at a time, all the way to FEET

Found the next word? Type it in as your word and press Get hints again. The step count drops by one and you get fresh hints for the move after it. From MOON, once you've worked out that MO_N is MOAN, the solver says 4 steps and points at the 2nd letter, showing M_AN. Keep going and you climb the whole ladder yourself, one word at a time.

The step count is also a quick check on a word you're thinking of playing. If the count for your new word isn't one less than before, that move doesn't bring you closer to FEET, and you'll end up over par.

When a word isn't accepted where you play

Word lists differ between sites. Ours accepts 3,852 words, including oddities like CELT, FEOD and LEET, and a stricter game may turn some of them down. Switch on Only common words and the Feetle solver plans its hints through our 2,507 everyday words only (plus your start and target). The route is sometimes longer, but the word it hints at is far more likely to be accepted anywhere.

WARM shows the difference. With the full list the solver says 4 steps and hints at WAR_. With Only common words on, it says 6 steps and hints at _ARM instead, because the short route needs rare words.

If the solver says a word isn't in the list or two words can't be joined, it tells you which. Some words are islands: IRON and ONCE can't reach FEET at all.