LeetCode 3838: Weighted Word Mapping

Meta Data

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Difficulty: easy First Attempt: 2026-02-14

• Submissions: Accepted (first try)

Approach

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For each word compute its total weight w and r = w % 26. Reverse alphabetical order is 0 -> 'z', 1 -> 'y', …, so the letter is chr(ord('z') - r) (Array Template 5).

My Solution

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class Solution:
    def mapWordWeights(self, words: List[str], weights: List[int]) -> str:
        return "".join(
            chr(ord("z") - sum(weights[ord(c) - ord("a")] for c in w) % 26)
            for w in words
        )

Complexity

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Time O(total characters), space O(number of words).

Mistakes to Avoid

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• The mapping is reversed: 0 maps to z, not a.

Interview Explanation

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For each word I sum the letter weights mod 26 and subtract the remainder from ord('z') for the reversed letter, then join. Time O(total characters).