Nature hangman words
82 nature and landscapes words, each with a clue and a difficulty score computed from its spelling. 38 easy, 35 medium, 9 hard.
Average score
3.7
Across all 82 words
Hardest
swamp
Scores 8.6
Easiest
prairie
Scores -1.0
Nature words are vowel-rich, which makes most of them easier than they look. Archipelago is eleven letters and five of them are vowels, so the board fills quickly once a guesser opens with the obvious ones.
The exceptions are the geological terms. Quartz, sediment and stalagmite carry either a rare letter or an unusual cluster, and they are where a round ends.
This category has the most overlap with science, so if you are running several rounds, alternate them rather than playing them back to back. Guessers start to notice the shared vocabulary and it makes both lists easier.
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Easy nature and landscapes words38
The usual opening guesses cover most of it, so it tends to fall quickly.
| Word | Clue | Letters | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| acorn | A whole oak, packaged | 5 / 5 distinct | 1.8 | Easy |
| bamboo | A grass that behaves like a tree | 6 / 4 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
| biodiversity | How many different kinds are actually there | 12 / 10 distinct | 3.1 | Easy |
| canyon | Carved by a river with a great deal of patience | 6 / 5 distinct | 3.2 | Easy |
| conservation | Deciding what is worth keeping, then keeping it | 12 / 10 distinct | 1.4 | Easy |
| desert | Defined by how little rain falls, not by heat | 6 / 5 distinct | 1.5 | Easy |
| ecosystem | Everything living in a place, plus the place | 9 / 7 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
| estuary | Where the river meets the tide | 7 / 7 distinct | 2.4 | Easy |
| fern | Older than flowers, and unfurls as it grows | 4 / 4 distinct | 3.5 | Easy |
| forest | Enough trees that the canopy closes over | 6 / 6 distinct | 2.0 | Easy |
| geyser | Boiling water fired upward on a schedule | 6 / 5 distinct | 3.2 | Easy |
| granite | Coarse, speckled, and extremely durable | 7 / 7 distinct | 1.0 | Easy |
| habitat | The specific place a species can live | 7 / 5 distinct | 1.6 | Easy |
| hibernate | Sleeping through the part with no food | 9 / 8 distinct | 1.3 | Easy |
| horizon | The line you can never reach | 7 / 6 distinct | 3.0 | Easy |
| hurricane | A storm with an eye and a name | 9 / 8 distinct | 2.4 | Easy |
| jasmine | Small white flower with an enormous scent | 7 / 7 distinct | 3.3 | Easy |
| lagoon | Shallow water held back by a reef or bar | 6 / 5 distinct | 1.8 | Easy |
| limestone | Made of ancient shells, and dissolves in rain | 9 / 8 distinct | 1.3 | Easy |
| migration | Leaving on time, every year, without a map | 9 / 8 distinct | 1.3 | Easy |
| monsoon | A seasonal reversal of the wind, and the rain it brings | 7 / 4 distinct | -0.3 | Easy |
| moss | Grows where it is damp and does not mind shade | 4 / 3 distinct | 2.8 | Easy |
| mountain | High ground that makes its own weather | 8 / 7 distinct | 1.1 | Easy |
| nectar | The bribe that makes pollination happen | 6 / 6 distinct | 2.0 | Easy |
| peninsula | Land with water on three sides | 9 / 8 distinct | 2.4 | Easy |
| prairie | Vast temperate grassland | 7 / 5 distinct | -1.0 | Easy |
| rainbow | Sunlight, raindrops, and a fixed angle | 7 / 7 distinct | 3.3 | Easy |
| rainforest | Warm, wet, and layered from floor to canopy | 10 / 9 distinct | 0.5 | Easy |
| sandstone | Grains of sand cemented together | 9 / 7 distinct | 0.8 | Easy |
| savanna | Grassland with scattered trees | 7 / 4 distinct | 1.2 | Easy |
| seashell | The house an animal left behind | 8 / 5 distinct | 2.6 | Easy |
| sediment | What settles when the water slows | 8 / 7 distinct | 2.1 | Easy |
| seedling | Everything a tree will ever be, small | 8 / 7 distinct | 3.4 | Easy |
| shoreline | Where the map stops being reliable | 9 / 8 distinct | 1.3 | Easy |
| stalactite | Hangs down; the one that holds tight to the ceiling | 10 / 7 distinct | 0.9 | Easy |
| stalagmite | Grows up from the cave floor | 10 / 8 distinct | 2.2 | Easy |
| sunrise | The horizon dropping away from the sun | 7 / 6 distinct | 0.6 | Easy |
| tornado | A rotating column touching the ground | 7 / 6 distinct | 0.6 | Easy |
Medium nature and landscapes words35
You will get a foothold, then have to work out the rest properly.
| Word | Clue | Letters | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| archipelago | A whole group of islands together | 11 / 10 distinct | 3.6 | Medium |
| avalanche | Snow that stops holding on to the slope | 9 / 7 distinct | 4.1 | Medium |
| blossom | The brief part of the year the tree is famous for | 7 / 5 distinct | 4.1 | Medium |
| boulder | Too heavy to argue with | 7 / 7 distinct | 5.3 | Medium |
| cactus | Stores water and defends it seriously | 6 / 5 distinct | 4.8 | Medium |
| cavern | A large chamber under the ground | 6 / 6 distinct | 4.7 | Medium |
| chestnut | Spiky case, glossy nut inside | 8 / 7 distinct | 4.4 | Medium |
| climate | Weather, averaged over decades | 7 / 7 distinct | 3.9 | Medium |
| coral | An animal that builds a reef | 5 / 5 distinct | 3.8 | Medium |
| daffodil | Yellow trumpet that announces spring | 8 / 6 distinct | 5.5 | Medium |
| driftwood | Wood that has been travelling | 9 / 7 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| glacier | Ice moving downhill, slowly, for centuries | 7 / 7 distinct | 3.9 | Medium |
| landscape | Everything you can see from one place | 9 / 8 distinct | 4.4 | Medium |
| lavender | Purple, fragrant, and full of bees | 8 / 7 distinct | 4.2 | Medium |
| lichen | An alga and a fungus living as one thing | 6 / 6 distinct | 5.3 | Medium |
| lightning | The discharge; thunder is only the sound | 9 / 6 distinct | 4.7 | Medium |
| marsh | Wet ground with grasses rather than trees | 5 / 5 distinct | 5.4 | Medium |
| meadow | Open grassland, usually cut once a year | 6 / 6 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| orchard | Trees planted deliberately, in rows, for fruit | 7 / 6 distinct | 4.6 | Medium |
| orchid | The largest family of flowering plants | 6 / 6 distinct | 5.3 | Medium |
| pebble | A stone rounded by being knocked about | 6 / 4 distinct | 6.0 | Medium |
| plankton | Drifts, and feeds almost everything | 8 / 7 distinct | 5.2 | Medium |
| pollen | How plants get themselves to each other | 6 / 5 distinct | 4.8 | Medium |
| sapling | Past seedling, not yet a tree | 7 / 7 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| sunflower | Tracks the sun while it is growing | 9 / 9 distinct | 5.4 | Medium |
| sycamore | Seeds that spin as they fall | 8 / 8 distinct | 3.8 | Medium |
| thunder | Air expanding faster than it can get out of the way | 7 / 7 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| tundra | Too cold for trees, and frozen underneath | 6 / 6 distinct | 3.7 | Medium |
| twilight | Light without the sun being up | 8 / 6 distinct | 6.3 | Medium |
| volcano | A vent where the inside of the earth gets out | 7 / 6 distinct | 4.4 | Medium |
| waterfall | Where a river runs out of floor | 9 / 7 distinct | 5.0 | Medium |
| wetland | Ground that is wet for long enough to change what grows | 7 / 7 distinct | 5.9 | Medium |
| wilderness | Land that has largely been left alone | 10 / 8 distinct | 3.8 | Medium |
| wildfire | Fast, hot, and shaped by the wind | 8 / 7 distinct | 5.5 | Medium |
| woodland | Trees with enough gaps for light to reach the floor | 8 / 6 distinct | 5.3 | Medium |
Hard nature and landscapes words9
Rare letters, few vowels, or almost no repetition for a guesser to lean on.
| Word | Clue | Letters | Score | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| bark | The tree's outer defence | 4 / 4 distinct | 7.5 | Hard |
| blizzard | Snow plus wind plus no visibility | 8 / 7 distinct | 7.7 | Hard |
| branch | Where the trunk stops committing | 6 / 6 distinct | 6.7 | Hard |
| drought | Not enough rain for long enough to matter | 7 / 7 distinct | 6.4 | Hard |
| fungus | Neither plant nor animal, and mostly underground | 6 / 5 distinct | 6.5 | Hard |
| quartz | Common, hard, and often clear | 6 / 6 distinct | 7.3 | Hard |
| swamp | Wetland where trees still manage to grow | 5 / 5 distinct | 8.6 | Hard |
| valley | The low ground between two ranges | 6 / 5 distinct | 7.7 | Hard |
| willow | Leans over water and weeps by reputation | 6 / 4 distinct | 7.5 | Hard |
Questions
What are good nature and landscapes words for hangman?
The ones that survive a normal opening. A guesser starts with E, A, R and the other common letters, so a good word is one those letters barely touch. On this page that is the score: 82 nature and landscapes words are listed and 9 of them rate hard.
How many nature and landscapes words are on this list?
82, deduplicated, each with a clue and a computed difficulty score. They split into 38 easy, 35 medium and 9 hard.
What is the hardest word in this category?
SWAMP, at 8.6. The easiest is PRAIRIE at -1.0. Both numbers come from the same formula, which is published in full at hangmanwords.net/how-difficulty-is-scored/.
Can I play these words rather than read them?
Yes. The play link on this page loads a game that draws only from this nature list, so every word you get is one of the 82 below.