How to play hangman
Two players, one word, six wrong guesses. The whole game takes about a minute to explain and the rest of this page is the detail people argue about afterwards.
- 1
One player chooses a word
Write nothing down where the guesser can see it. Draw one short dash for every letter, with a wider gap between words if you are using a phrase. The number of dashes is the first and biggest clue in the game, so count them properly.
- 2
Draw the gallows
Base, upright, beam and rope. The convention is that the gallows is there from the start and only the figure is added as the game goes on, which is what gives you exactly six wrong guesses.
- 3
The other player guesses a letter
One letter at a time, said out loud. Vowels first is the usual opening, and E is the single most common letter in English.
- 4
Fill in every position, or draw a part
If the letter is in the word, write it into every position it occupies, not just the first. If it is not, draw the next body part and write the letter off to one side so nobody guesses it twice.
- 5
The game ends one of two ways
The guesser completes the word and wins, or the figure is finished and the setter wins. Reveal the word either way; a word nobody sees is a wasted round.
The drawing order
- 1. Head
- 2. Body
- 3. Left arm
- 4. Right arm
- 5. Left leg
- 6. Right leg
The gallows goes up before the first guess. Adding it to the count is the most common house rule and it turns six guesses into ten.
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House rules worth agreeing first
- How many parts. Six is standard. Ten is common with children, and this site uses ten on the kids category for that reason.
- Whether a wrong word guess costs a life. Most people allow a free guess at the whole word. Some count it as a body part. Decide before somebody blurts one out.
- Whether the category is announced. Announcing it makes the game considerably easier and considerably more fun with a mixed group.
- Whether names and phrases are allowed. Both change the game. Phrases are easier than they look; proper nouns are harder, because the guesser cannot rely on spelling patterns.
- Whether the setter can refuse a word. They cannot. The word is chosen before the first guess and does not change.
Choosing a word properly
The instinct is to pick something obscure, and it usually backfires. Obscurity only matters at the very end of a game, when the guesser is looking at a nearly complete word. What decides the game is the opening, and the opening is about letters.
A word that resists a normal opening is short on the letters people try first, short on vowels, and has no repeats to give several positions away at once. That is measurable, and every word on this site is measured on it. The methodology page has the formula, and the hard list is what comes out of it.
Playing it in a classroom
Announce the category, give ten guesses rather than six, and ask the guesser to say the word aloud and write it out once solved. That turns a game into spelling practice without anybody noticing, and the school and kids lists are built for it.
If the drawing itself is a problem for your group, replace the figure with anything that builds in six steps. A snowman works, and so does a rocket. Nothing about the game depends on what is being drawn.
Questions
How do you play hangman?
One player picks a word and draws a dash for each letter. The other guesses letters one at a time. A correct letter is written into every position it occupies; a wrong one adds a part to the hanged figure. Six wrong guesses and the setter wins.
How many guesses do you get in hangman?
Six is standard, giving a head, a body, two arms and two legs. Many people play with more by counting parts of the gallows, or by adding hands, feet, ears and a face. Agree the number before the first guess rather than during an argument.
What order is the hangman figure drawn in?
Head, body, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg. The gallows itself is drawn before play starts. That is the order this site uses and the one most people learn.
Can hangman words have more than one word?
Yes, and phrases play differently. The gaps between words are visible from the start, so a guesser can see the shape of the whole phrase before guessing anything, and short function words become the way in.
Are repeated letters revealed all at once?
Yes. If the word is BANANA and the guesser says A, all three positions are filled in. This is the rule people most often get wrong, and it is the reason repeated letters make a word easier.
What is a good first guess?
E, then A, then R. Those carry more of English than any other letters, and the difficulty score on this site is built partly on how much of a word the eight commonest letters cover.