"word ladder" meaning in English

See word ladder in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: word ladders [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} word ladder (plural word ladders)
  1. A kind of puzzle in which one word must be transformed into another specified word of the same length by changing one letter at a time, each step yielding a valid intermediate word, as in lead → load → goad → gold.
    Sense id: en-word_ladder-en-noun-6oQJ4vjx
  2. (crosswording) A type of cryptic crossword clue in which the each word in the clue defines a single term each varying by a single letter, and all the terms together form a word ladder between the first half of the solution and the second half. Categories (topical): Crosswording Synonyms: doublet, laddergram Related terms: word golf
    Sense id: en-word_ladder-en-noun-jBmmM-e4 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 32 68 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 15 85 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 13 87

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "word ladders",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "word ladder (plural word ladders)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A kind of puzzle in which one word must be transformed into another specified word of the same length by changing one letter at a time, each step yielding a valid intermediate word, as in lead → load → goad → gold."
      ],
      "id": "en-word_ladder-en-noun-6oQJ4vjx",
      "links": [
        [
          "puzzle",
          "puzzle"
        ],
        [
          "word",
          "word"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Crosswording",
          "orig": "en:Crosswording",
          "parents": [
            "Games",
            "Hobbies",
            "Recreation",
            "Human activity",
            "Human behaviour",
            "Human",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "32 68",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "15 85",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "13 87",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1954, The Listener:",
          "text": "But his real genius lay in the devising of many entirely new types of crossword, some of which have found enthusiastic imitators . 'Printer's Devilry', 'Playfair', and 'Word-Ladder' , for instance, were his invention",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990 10, Listener and BBC Television Review:",
          "text": "In the word ladder each rung is a six-letter word which has five letters in common with each of its neighbours (e.g. DISTIL, LISTED, STRIDE, EDITOR, etc). The rungs to be entered in the diagram are not clued but must be deduced from the other rungs which are",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 August 17, Alan Connor, “Crossword blog: meet the setter - Micawber/Morph”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):",
          "text": "Some of Morph's politically themed crosswords stick out: the puzzle where BLAIR changed to BROWN word-ladder-style in the grid via BLAIN/BRAIN/BRAWN and the one featuring various items claimed on expenses by MPs: DUCK ISLAND and so on.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A type of cryptic crossword clue in which the each word in the clue defines a single term each varying by a single letter, and all the terms together form a word ladder between the first half of the solution and the second half."
      ],
      "id": "en-word_ladder-en-noun-jBmmM-e4",
      "links": [
        [
          "crosswording",
          "crosswording"
        ],
        [
          "cryptic",
          "cryptic"
        ],
        [
          "crossword",
          "crossword"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "crosswording",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(crosswording) A type of cryptic crossword clue in which the each word in the clue defines a single term each varying by a single letter, and all the terms together form a word ladder between the first half of the solution and the second half."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "35 65",
          "word": "word golf"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "_dis1": "35 65",
          "word": "doublet"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "35 65",
          "word": "laddergram"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "word ladder"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "word ladders",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "word ladder (plural word ladders)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "word golf"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "glosses": [
        "A kind of puzzle in which one word must be transformed into another specified word of the same length by changing one letter at a time, each step yielding a valid intermediate word, as in lead → load → goad → gold."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "puzzle",
          "puzzle"
        ],
        [
          "word",
          "word"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Crosswording"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1954, The Listener:",
          "text": "But his real genius lay in the devising of many entirely new types of crossword, some of which have found enthusiastic imitators . 'Printer's Devilry', 'Playfair', and 'Word-Ladder' , for instance, were his invention",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1990 10, Listener and BBC Television Review:",
          "text": "In the word ladder each rung is a six-letter word which has five letters in common with each of its neighbours (e.g. DISTIL, LISTED, STRIDE, EDITOR, etc). The rungs to be entered in the diagram are not clued but must be deduced from the other rungs which are",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012 August 17, Alan Connor, “Crossword blog: meet the setter - Micawber/Morph”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):",
          "text": "Some of Morph's politically themed crosswords stick out: the puzzle where BLAIR changed to BROWN word-ladder-style in the grid via BLAIN/BRAIN/BRAWN and the one featuring various items claimed on expenses by MPs: DUCK ISLAND and so on.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A type of cryptic crossword clue in which the each word in the clue defines a single term each varying by a single letter, and all the terms together form a word ladder between the first half of the solution and the second half."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "crosswording",
          "crosswording"
        ],
        [
          "cryptic",
          "cryptic"
        ],
        [
          "crossword",
          "crossword"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "crosswording",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(crosswording) A type of cryptic crossword clue in which the each word in the clue defines a single term each varying by a single letter, and all the terms together form a word ladder between the first half of the solution and the second half."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "doublet"
    },
    {
      "word": "laddergram"
    }
  ],
  "word": "word ladder"
}

Download raw JSONL data for word ladder meaning in English (2.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-02-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-02-21 using wiktextract (ce0be54 and f2e72e5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.