Alternade Alternade An alternade is a word in which its letters, taken alternatively in a strict sequence, and used in the same order as the original word, make up at least two other words. All letters must be used, but the smaller words are not necessarily of the same length. For example, a word with seven letters where every second letter is used will produce a four-letter word and a three-letter word. In the majority of alternades, every second letter is used to make two smaller words, but in some cases, every third letter is used to make three smaller words.
Word ladder be connected with a word ladder. Knuth used a fixed collection of 5,757 of the most common English five-letter words, excluding proper nouns. He determined exactly when two words of the collection had a word ladder between them via other words in the collection. Knuth found that most words were connected to each other, and he also found that 671 words of the collection did not form a word ladder with any other words. He called these words "aloof", because "aloof" is itself an example of such a word. Word ladder Word ladder (also known as Doublets, word-links, change-the-word puzzles,