Hangman words
1792 words in 24 categories. Every one carries a clue and a difficulty score computed from its spelling, so you can pick by how hard a word actually plays rather than by how unusual it sounds. 901 rate easy, 646 medium and 245 hard.
Creatures from every continent and every ocean.
85 words · 43/31/11 e/m/h
Dishes, ingredients and the things you cook them with.
83 words · 46/25/12 e/m/h
Nations from every continent, easy ones and awkward ones.
85 words · 48/29/8 e/m/h
Games, events, equipment and the words around them.
80 words · 27/37/16 e/m/h
Physics, chemistry, biology and everything above the atmosphere.
82 words · 48/30/4 e/m/h
Classroom objects, subjects and the rhythm of the school day.
82 words · 42/33/7 e/m/h
Trades, professions and what each one actually does.
84 words · 59/20/5 e/m/h
Landscape, weather, plants and the words for wild places.
82 words · 38/35/9 e/m/h
Hardware, software and the vocabulary that came with them.
82 words · 42/35/5 e/m/h
Airports, luggage, landmarks and everything in between.
83 words · 39/40/4 e/m/h
Instruments, notation, genres and how a piece is put together.
83 words · 46/25/12 e/m/h
How films are made, shot, cut and sold.
85 words · 49/29/7 e/m/h
Short, familiar words for players who are still learning to spell.
95 words · 41/37/17 e/m/h
Words that are enjoyable to say and awkward to guess.
86 words · 15/31/40 e/m/h
Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Easter and the rest of the calendar.
84 words · 39/39/6 e/m/h
Trees, stockings, carols and the whole of December.
81 words · 28/39/14 e/m/h
Pumpkins, costumes and everything that goes bump.
83 words · 26/35/22 e/m/h
All fifty, from Alabama to Wyoming.
50 words · 37/11/2 e/m/h
Anatomy from the skull to the sole.
74 words · 33/24/17 e/m/h
Planets, missions and everything past the atmosphere.
76 words · 42/29/5 e/m/h
Everything in the house, room by room.
83 words · 29/32/22 e/m/h
Every shade with a proper name, from crimson to taupe.
84 words · 40/37/7 e/m/h
Everything that moves people, on land, water or air.
85 words · 42/32/11 e/m/h
Multi-word idioms, where the gaps between words do half the work.
86 words · 82/4/0 e/m/h
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The twelve hardest on the site
Not the longest, not the most obscure. These are the words the opening guesses miss.
duck
score 12.5 · 4 letters
Swims on the pond and quacks
fuzzy
score 12.3 · 5 letters
Covered in soft short hairs, or unclear
lynx
score 12.0 · 4 letters
Tufted-eared wild cat with huge snowshoe paws
wacky
score 11.8 · 5 letters
Amusingly eccentric
jazz
score 11.8 · 4 letters
Written down, then argued with
jaw
score 11.0 · 3 letters
Hinged, and the strongest muscle acts on it
plum
score 11.0 · 4 letters
Dark purple-red
wobbly
score 10.7 · 6 letters
Unsteady, and about to go over
fluffy
score 10.7 · 6 letters
Light, soft and full of air
mug
score 10.3 · 3 letters
Everyone has a favourite
skull
score 10.3 · 5 letters
The helmet you were issued with
puppy
score 10.2 · 5 letters
A very young dog
Why these lists are scored
Every hangman word list explains what makes a word hard, and the explanation is always about the same: rare letters, few vowels, little repetition. Then the list is sorted by somebody's judgement anyway, and words end up under Hard because they sound unusual.
Sounding unusual is not the same as playing hard. Rhinoceros is a strange animal and an easy word, because almost every letter in it is one people guess in the first four tries. Duck is an ordinary animal and one of the hardest words on this site, because a guesser can open with the eight most common letters and hit nothing at all.
So the score does the sorting here. Four measurements, one number, and the whole formula is on the methodology page where you can check it against any word you like.
Common questions
What are the best hangman words?
The best words for the person choosing are the ones a normal opening does not touch. A guesser tries E, A, R, T and the rest of the common letters first, so a strong hangman word is short on those, short on vowels, and has no repeated letters to give several positions away at once.
How many hangman words are on this site?
1792 across 24 categories, all deduplicated. Each one has a clue and a difficulty score worked out from its spelling, and the lists are printed in the page rather than loaded by script, so you can read or copy them without JavaScript.
Are hard hangman words just long words?
No, and that is the most common mistake. Length helps a guesser, because every correct letter reveals more of the board. The hardest words tend to be short ones built from letters nobody opens with, which is why a four letter word can outrank a twelve letter one.
Can I use these lists in a classroom?
Yes. They are free to use, the school and kids lists were built for exactly that, and the score lets you match the difficulty to the group instead of guessing.