Mystery Word Ladder With Hints

Here are hints for the mystery word ladders presented in yesterday's post. Go to yesterday's post if you want the puzzles without clues. Wait for tomorrow's post if you want the full answers. There are likely shorter answers to some of these: these were handmade.

The dots represent several steps.

STAB to BACK in 7 steps.

STAB, SLAB, _ _ _ _, . . . . _ _ _ _, BECK, BACK

From DANGER to SAFETY in 10 steps.

DANGER, DINGER, _ _ _ _ _ _, . . . .DANKLY . . . . _ _ _ _ _ _, SAFELY, SAFETY. 

From CRIME to CUFFS in 10 steps.

CRIME, PRIME, _ _ _ _ _, . . . . GOOFS, . . . . _ _ _ _ _, GUFFS, CUFFS

POE to ECO in 14 steps. (Poe and Eco are not Scrabble words, but the connecting words are)

POE, POT, _ _ _, . . . ., ERE, . . . ., _ _ _, EGO, ECO

From TRIAL to GUILT in 18 steps.

TRIAL, TRIAD, _ _ _ _ _, . . . . ., FREED, . . . . ., PLATE, . . . . ., _ _ _ _ _, GUILE, GUILT

From JEWEL to HEIST in 18 steps. 

JEWEL, JEBEL, _ _ _ _ _, . . . ., ROPES, . . . ., MOSEY, . . . ., _ _ _ _ _, HOIST, HEIST

From HOLMES to MARPLE in 25 steps. 

HOLMES, HOLIES, _ _ _ _ _ _, BITTER, . . . ., BURGEE, . . . . . ., _ _ _ _ _ _, MARBLE, MARPLE

Some people take word ladders seriously, plugging all words of a certain length into a computer and using a program to find the optimal paths. This generated this graph for six letter words. 

The programmer found that the longest word ladder needed to connect two words in the shortest manner is 49 words long: CHARGE to COMEDO.

Martin Hill Ortiz is a Professor of Pharmacology at Ponce Health Sciences University and has researched HIV for over thirty years.

https://mdhillortiz.com/