How to play hangman

How to play

You need: paper and a pen, or one phone.

1. The word setter thinks of a word and draws one blank line for each letter.
2. Guessers call out one letter at a time.
3. If the letter is in the word, the setter writes it on every blank where it appears.
4. If it is not, the setter writes the letter aside and adds one part to the drawing: head, body, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg.
5. The guessers win by finding the whole word before the sixth wrong letter. Then someone else sets the next word.

Rules

• A guesser may try the whole word at any time; a wrong word counts as a wrong letter.
• A letter that was already guessed does not count twice.
• Agree on the category or say none at all; a category makes it easier.
• No names, no abbreviations and no words with spaces unless everyone agrees.

Variants

Category hint

The setter says the category, like Animals or Food, before the first guess. Good for younger players.

More or fewer mistakes

Add a face, hands and feet to the drawing for ten mistakes, or play with only four for a hard game.

Two-player duel

Take turns setting words; whoever finds more words in five rounds wins.

Tips to play better

• Guess vowels first: E, A, O and I appear in most English words.
• Then try the most common consonants: T, N, S, R and L.
• Look at the shape: a word ending in a blank after an E is often -ED or -ER.
• To set a hard word, choose one with rare letters and few vowels, such as RHYTHM or JAZZ, or a short word, which gives fewer clues.