Poople Hint Today

How the Poople hints work

Most hint pages just print the answer, which is a bit like peeking at the last page of a mystery. The Poople hints here work the other way round. There are five hints, and each one stays locked until you've opened the one before it. The first Poople hints are broad and the later ones narrow things down. The last one names the next word, and it's tucked behind a spoiler button so you can't hit it by accident.

1. How long the ladder is. The number of steps in the shortest route, so you know the score to beat, plus how close your word already is to POOP.
2. Your options. How many legal moves you have, and how many of them actually help.
3. Which letter to change. The position of the letter to swap first, shown on the tiles.
4. What the new letter is like. A vowel or a consonant, and which half of the alphabet it comes from.
5. The next word. Only one step, never the whole ladder.

You'll also find a move checker under the Poople hints. Think of a word, type it in, and it tells you whether the move keeps you on a shortest route, costs you an extra step or leads nowhere. It's the quickest way to test a hunch without committing to it in the real game.

Poople hint today: the daily word

Poople gives everybody the same starting word each day, and the puzzle changes at 08:00 UTC. When you open this Poople hint page, it works out today's puzzle number and reads the day's word from the public Poople website, in your own browser. It's saved on your device, so the lookup happens once a day and the page opens fast after that.

If the lookup fails for any reason, you aren't stuck. Look at the top of the daily game, type the word into the box above and carry on. The same goes for older puzzles: any four-letter word works, so you can go back to a ladder that beat you last week and ask for a Poople hint on it.

Gateway words: the last step before POOP

Every ladder ends the same way. Just before POOP, you pass through a word that differs from it by one letter. Knowing these makes it easier to plan backwards, and planning backwards is the biggest single trick in the game.

• COOP
• GOOP
• HOOP
• LOOP
• PLOP
• POMP
• POOF
• POOL
• POOR
• PROP

Pick the one closest to the word you're on. If your word has an O in the middle, such as FOOL or TOOL, you're probably only a step or two from POOL. If it ends in P, think PLOP, PROP and POMP.

Tips to use with every Poople hint

A Poople hint is easier to use when you know a few habits of the game. These tips save steps:

• Work backwards. Start from POOP and ask which gateway word is nearest to yours, then bridge the gap.
• Fix the O's early. POOP is built on a pair of O's in the middle. A word with O in the second or third spot is usually closer than it looks.
• Think P at both ends. Any word that starts or ends with P has one letter done already.
• Prefer common words. Rare words are more likely to be refused by the game. A plain word keeps the ladder safe.
• Don't change the same slot twice in a row. If you do, you could have gone there in one move.
• Beware dead ends. Some words have only one or two neighbours. If the options hint says "one", you're on a narrow road.
• Try another position. When you've gone round in circles, change a different letter than the one you've been tweaking.

Poople Hint or Poople Solver?

They answer different questions. A Poople hint is for people who still want to solve it themselves and need a small push. The Poople Solver is for people who want to see the whole shortest ladder at once, perhaps to check their own or to learn from it. If you start with the Poople hints and still can't see it, the Solver is one click away. And if you'd like to warm up first, the unlimited practice game has a hint button of its own.

Poople Hint FAQ