💀 Hangman Evolved

How to play Hangman

Hangman is a letter-guessing game. A word is hidden, you see only how many letters it has, and you name one letter at a time. Correct guesses fill in every position where that letter appears. Wrong guesses cost you one of six lives. Fill the word before the lives run out and you win the round.

1. Check the category first. Every word belongs to one of eight categories — Animals, Foods, Countries, Sports, Jobs, Nature, Movies or Science. The badge above the board tells you which, and it narrows the field enormously before you have guessed anything.
2. Count the blanks. Word length is free information. A four-letter animal and an eleven-letter animal are very different search problems.
3. Guess a letter using the on-screen keyboard or by typing. Each letter can only be guessed once, and used letters grey out so you never waste a turn repeating yourself.
4. Watch your lives. Six wrong guesses end the round. The drawing fills in one piece per mistake, so you can always see how much room you have left.
5. Finish the word to win, then share your result or keep your streak going tomorrow.

Daily word and practice mode

There are two ways to play. The daily word is the same for everyone, everywhere, and resets at midnight — so you and a friend on the other side of the world are solving the same puzzle, and comparing results is meaningful. You get one attempt at it, and winning extends your streak.

Practice mode is unlimited. Play as many rounds as you like with no effect on your streak. It is the right place to try a risky opening guess or to warm up before taking on the daily.

Strategy: how to win more often

Open with vowels, but not all of them

E is the most common letter in English, followed by A, then I and O. Opening with E and A tells you a great deal about the shape of the word for very little risk. Beyond that, spending three or four guesses on every vowel is usually wasteful — U and Y appear rarely enough that you are better off inferring them from the pattern.

Then work through the common consonants

After vowels, the highest-value letters are R, S, T, L and N. Between those five and the vowels E and A, you will have revealed part of almost any English word. Save J, Q, X and Z for when the pattern actually suggests them — guessing Z early is a life spent on a long shot.

Read the endings

English words cluster around a small number of endings. If the last three blanks are unfilled and the word is long, -ING, -ION, -ENT and -ERS are all worth considering. Confirming a single letter of a likely ending often cascades into two or three more positions at once.

Double letters catch people out

When a guess reveals a letter in one position, check whether the word plausibly repeats it. Foods and Animals in particular are full of doubles — think of the pattern in words like BUTTER or GIRAFFE. A revealed letter is not necessarily a single occurrence.

Common questions

More word games

If you enjoy Hangman, try Mystery Word for a five-letter deduction puzzle, Word Wheel for a letter-pool challenge, or Unscramble It if you would rather rearrange letters than guess them. Stuck on a word elsewhere? The Word Finder lists every word your letters can make.