How to Play Hangman
One player picks a word and draws a blank for each letter; the other names letters. A letter in the word is written into every position it occupies. A letter that is not draws one part of the figure — head, body, two arms, two legs. Six wrong letters and the guesser loses and is shown the word. Fill every blank first and the guesser wins.
The rules, step by step
- 1Take the blanksThe computer chooses a word and shows one blank per letter. The number of blanks is real information: count them before you guess anything.
- 2Name a letterPress any letter on the keyboard, or tap it on the on-screen alphabet. Upper and lower case are the same thing.
- 3A correct letter fills every position it occupiesOne guess uncovers all copies. Guessing E in sentence reveals three letters for the price of one guess.
- 4A wrong letter draws a part of the figureHead, then body, then the two arms and the two legs — six wrong guesses in total. The gallows is drawn from the start and does not count.
- 5A repeated guess is freePressing a letter you have already tried does nothing: no part is drawn, no guess is spent, and the used letters stay marked on the alphabet.
- 6Uncover every letter to winThe game ends the moment the last blank is filled. If the sixth part is drawn first, the word is revealed in full and the round is lost.
Try it — the rules above, running
New word deals a fresh answer at the level and subject you last chose, Hint uncovers a vowel and costs one of your six guesses — it is refused when you have only one left, so it can never be the move that loses the game. The three-dot menu holds today’s shared word, the difficulty and the subject categories.
Your statistics · easy
- Played
- 0
- Won
- 0
- Win rate
- 0%
- Streak
- 0
- Best streak
- 0
- Best time
- —
- Guesses used
- 0
This level
Four to seven letters built from common letters: a guesser working straight down E T A O I N spends eight wrong letters at most on one. About 3,100 words.
The whole dictionary — 25,162 everyday English words once the unprintable ones are taken out, then filtered by difficulty.
Keyboard
- A – Z
- Guess that letter
- ?
- Show the shortcuts
- Shift + F
- Full screen
How does a round of hangman actually go?
- 1Set the word out as blanksOne dash per letter, with the gallows already drawn. The length is public information — hiding it would make the game unplayable.
- 2Open on a vowel that suits the lengthE on almost anything; A on a four-letter word, where it is worth nearly the same; S early on a five-letter word, because plurals dominate that bucket.
- 3Fill in every copy of a correct letterOne guess, all positions. This is what makes a word with a repeated letter easier than it looks — and 64.5% of English words have one.
- 4Draw one part per wrong letterHead, body, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg. Agree before you start whether the gallows counts; here it does not.
- 5Switch from guessing to readingOnce three or four letters are up, stop working down the alphabet and ask what English words fit the pattern. That is where the remaining guesses are won.
Which letters should you guess first in hangman?
The order worth memorising is E T A O I N S H R D L C U M W F G Y P B V K J X Q Z. It is only a starting point: it describes letters in ordinary text, while what you want to know is how many words contain a letter at least once. On that measure the top of the list is E 62.8%, I 47.8%, A 46.8%, S 46.2%, R 45.6%, N 42.7%, T 41.2%, O 37.2% — note that I outranks A, and that T falls a long way.
- Open with E unless the word is four letters, where A is level with it.
- Guess S early on a plural-shaped word — 44.4% of five-letter words contain one.
- Stop at three vowels. The fourth is rarely worth a chance.
- Leave the rare letters alone until the pattern asks for them: only 6.4% of words contain a J, X, Q or Z at all.
How do you read the pattern instead of guessing?
- Three blanks after a known I, at the end — almost always -ING.
- Two blanks at the end with a vowel before them — try D then R: -ED and -ER are the two commonest endings in English.
- A known T with two blanks and an N — -TION is the single most productive suffix in the language.
- A double blank in the middle — L, S, T, N and E are the letters that double; J, K, Q, V, W, X and Y essentially never do.
- A revealed Q — the next letter is U. Take it as given and spend the guess elsewhere.
What are the house rules people argue about?
| Rule | This game | The alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Parts drawn | 6 — the figure only | 10 or 13, counting the gallows and features |
| Repeated guess | Free, ignored entirely | Counted as a miss |
| Word shown on a loss | Always | Never revealed |
| Category given | Optional, six subjects | Always, or never |
| Hint | Reveals a vowel, costs a guess | No hint at all |
The classroom version most people remember also lets the word-setter choose the word, which is where hangman stops being a fair game: a setter who picks jazz or buzz wins essentially every time. Choosing from a list of everyday words, as this version does, is what keeps it a contest of guessing rather than of dictionary-mining. If you want a puzzle where the answer is provably reachable by logic instead, sudoku is the one next door.
How do you win more often?
- Count the blanks before you guess a single letterWord length changes the right opening. On four letters, A is worth almost as much as E (34.5% against 35.7%); on five, S is worth nearly as much as E because so many five-letter words are plurals; on eight, I beats A outright.
- Buy a vowel skeleton, then stop buying vowelsTwo or three vowels usually fix the shape of the word, and after that each extra vowel is a poor bet — U is in only 22.4% of words and Y in 11.9%, and a wasted guess on one costs exactly what a wasted guess on Z costs.
- Guess the pattern, not the frequency tableA word ending in three blanks after a known I is almost always -ING; a final double blank after a vowel is often -LL, -SS or -TT. A frequency-order guesser wins only 14.4% of the time, and the difference is entirely pattern reading.
- Treat Q as a free U and vice versaAll 293 words in this list that contain a Q have a U straight after it — not one exception — so a revealed Q hands you the next letter for free. The reverse is not true: U turns up in 22.4% of words, almost always with no Q anywhere near it.
- Spend your last guess only on a letter the pattern demandsWith one chance left, do not take the commonest untried letter — take the one that has to be there for the visible pattern to be a word at all. If no letter is forced, guess the one that fits the most candidate words.
Common questions about hangman
- Who picks the word in hangman?
- Traditionally one player sets a word for the other, then swaps. Playing alone, the computer picks from a word list — which is fairer, because a human setter can simply choose a word full of rare letters.
- How long should a hangman word be?
- Between five and nine letters is the fair range. Very short words hide almost nothing and very long ones give away too much pattern, so the classic difficulty sits in the middle.
- Is hangman a two-player game?
- It began as one: a setter and a guesser, taking turns. Against a computer the setter's job is done by the word list, and the interesting half of the game — guessing — is the half you keep.
- What is the hardest word in hangman?
- Short words made of rare letters. Measured against a frequency-order guesser, jazz and buzz cost 23 wrong letters while the nine-letter attention costs none at all, because every letter in it is common.
Ready to stop reading? Play hangman on the full board, with controls and statistics tailored to that game.