🎮 How to Play
- Click letters from the alphabet to guess.
- Correct letters fill in the word. Wrong letters add to the hangman drawing.
- 6 wrong guesses = game over. Strategy: try common letters first (E, T, A, O, I, N, S, R).
About this tool
Classic word-guessing game. Pick letters one by one. Each wrong guess draws another part of the hanging man. 6 wrong = game over. Strategy: guess vowels first, then common consonants (RSTLN).
About Hangman
Hangman is a guessing game in which the solver tries to identify a hidden word one letter at a time. The host shows the length as a row of dashes; each correct guess fills in matching positions, each wrong guess adds a body part to a six-stroke gallows drawing. Win by completing the word before the figure is fully drawn. The game appeared in print as "Birds, Beasts, and Fishes" in the 1894 Traditional Games of England, Scotland, and Ireland by Alice Bertha Gomme, and the gallows variant was standard in classrooms by the early twentieth century.
This version randomises the target from a curated twenty-word list (JAVASCRIPT, PYRAMID, LIGHTHOUSE, BUTTERFLY, etc.), shows you a happy face while the round is alive, and switches to red x-eyes once you lose. The Hint button reveals a random unguessed letter at the cost of one wrong guess, so it never accidentally saves you when you are already on the gallows.
How the letter-frequency strategy works
English letter frequency is the single most useful guide. Across the Brown corpus the twelve most common letters are E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, R, D, L, U. Guess vowels first to anchor the word shape, then march down the consonant frequency list. A word with the pattern _ E _ _ E R is far more likely to contain R, S, T than Q, X, Z.
Position matters too. Words rarely start with X, Y, or Z. Double letters are usually L, S, E, O, T, F, M, or N. A trailing apostrophe-less Y often hints at -LY, -RY, -GY, -CY endings, which narrow the dictionary sharply.
Worked example: solving "BUTTERFLY"
The target has nine letters. You see _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. A sensible sequence:
- E (most common letter): reveals position 5 as E. Pattern:
_ _ _ _ E _ _ _ _. - T (2nd most common): reveals positions 3 and 4. Pattern:
_ _ T T E _ _ _ _. The double T is a strong signal. - R (common consonant, often follows -TTE-): reveals position 6. Pattern:
_ _ T T E R _ _ _. - Y (frequent word-final): reveals position 9. Pattern:
_ _ T T E R _ _ Y. - B and U: front-load the word. Pattern:
B U T T E R _ _ Y. - F then L: complete the word with zero wrong guesses.
English letter frequency reference
| Rank | Letter | Frequency in English text | Open with? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | E | 12.7% | Yes (first guess) |
| 2 | T | 9.1% | Yes |
| 3 | A | 8.2% | Yes (vowel) |
| 4 | O | 7.5% | Yes (vowel) |
| 5 | I | 7.0% | Yes (vowel) |
| 6 | N | 6.7% | Yes |
| 7 | S | 6.3% | Yes (plural / -ess) |
| 8 | H | 6.1% | Strong second wave |
| 9 | R | 6.0% | Strong second wave |
| 10 | D | 4.3% | Yes (past tense -ED) |
| 22 | K | 0.8% | Save for late |
| 26 | Z | 0.07% | Almost never |
Common pitfalls
- Burning vowels you already have. Once the pattern shows an E, do not also waste a turn on E again. Move to the next unrevealed vowel or to T, N, S.
- Ignoring word length. A 3-letter word is almost certainly THE, AND, FOR, YOU, NOT, BUT, IT, IS, OR. A 4-letter word with a vowel in position 2 narrows to a few hundred candidates.
- Guessing rare letters early. J, Q, X, Z together appear in under 1% of English text. Save them for confirmation, not exploration.
- Forgetting common digraphs. After T appears, H is much more likely than usual (THE, THIS, THAT, WITH). After Q, U is almost guaranteed.
- Burning the Hint button while alive. The Hint costs one wrong guess, so it is only worth using when you have at least two body parts left to spare and zero idea what to try next.
- Tunnel vision on one theme. The word list here mixes science (TELESCOPE, ASTRONAUT), nature (VOLCANO, OCEAN), and everyday (KEYBOARD, GUITAR), so do not assume the next word will match the previous one.
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Frequently asked questions
Why do I lose after exactly six wrong guesses?
Six is the traditional limit because the standard gallows drawing has six body parts: head, torso, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg. Each wrong guess adds one. Once the figure is complete, the round ends. Some classroom variants allow ten parts (adding eyes, mouth, hands, feet); the version on this page uses the original six.
What is the best opening letter in hangman?
E is the safest opener because it appears in about 12.7% of all English text and in roughly 80% of common English words of five or more letters. If E does not appear, follow with A, then O, then I to anchor vowel positions before committing wrong guesses to consonants.
Does the Hint button always help?
No. The Hint reveals one random unguessed letter from the target, but it also counts as a wrong guess, so it costs one body part. Use it only when you have at least two wrong guesses left and have run out of reasonable next-letter ideas. If you are already on five wrong, pressing Hint loses the round even though it fills in a letter.
Where does the word list come from?
The word pool is a curated list of twenty common English nouns ranging from 5 to 10 letters: JAVASCRIPT, PYTHON, KEYBOARD, GUITAR, MOUNTAIN, OCEAN, ELEPHANT, PYRAMID, TELESCOPE, VOLCANO, ASTRONAUT, SYMPHONY, MYSTERY, UNIVERSE, HORIZON, LIBRARY, WHISPER, LIGHTHOUSE, BUTTERFLY, PARACHUTE. New Word picks one at random; the same word can recur across sessions.
Is there a mathematically optimal hangman strategy?
Yes for known dictionaries. Jon McLoone's 2010 Wolfram analysis showed an adaptive strategy that picks the letter maximising the expected information gain at each step beats fixed frequency order by about 20%. For a casual player, frequency-first (E T A O I N S H R D) is within a couple of guesses of optimal and far easier to remember than recomputing the dictionary on every turn.