Guess the hidden word one letter at a time before the hangman is drawn. Free classic Hangman word game — 6 wrong guesses allowed.
Hangman
Guess the word before the hangman is complete!
0 / 6 wrong
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Register Free 🚀About Hangman
A hidden word, a row of blanks, and six wrong guesses before the drawing is finished. Every word comes with a category hint — Animal, Food, Weather, Country and eighteen others — which turns it from a letter lottery into a game you can reason about.
Vowels first, but not all of them
Almost every English word contains at least one of A, E, I or O, so opening with two vowels reliably puts letters on the board and shows you the shape of the word. E is the most common letter in English and A is close behind.
What you should not do is spend three or four guesses on vowels. Once you have two vowel positions the consonants tell you far more, and with only six wrong guesses available, U and Y are luxuries you usually cannot afford.
Use the hint before you guess anything
The category is not decoration. A four-letter word hinted as Country has a completely different letter distribution from a four-letter word hinted as Food, and reading the hint first often suggests two or three candidate words before you have guessed a single letter.
When it does, guess a letter that separates those candidates rather than the most common letter overall. The point of a guess is to distinguish between possibilities, which is the same principle that governs a good Wordle opener.
Common consonants, in order
After vowels, the letters that appear in the most English words are R, S, T, L and N — which is why they are the ones handed out for free at the end of a certain American game show. In practice R, S and T are the best value for a third and fourth guess.
Word endings are worth thinking about too. A word ending in G is very likely to end in NG; an S at the end suggests a plural, which tells you about the letter before it as well.
Six wrong guesses is tighter than it sounds
There are 26 letters and you can afford to be wrong six times, so a scattergun approach fails quickly. The words run from four to seven letters across 140 entries and 22 categories, and the short ones are often harder than the long ones — fewer letters means fewer footholds, and a four-letter word gives you very little to work with once two guesses have missed.
For the same vocabulary with a different kind of pressure, Anagram at cerdikcerdik.com/games/anagram gives you all the letters and hides only the order.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best first letter to guess in hangman?
E, then A. They are the two most common letters in English and both usually reveal the shape of the word. After that move to consonants — R, S and T carry more information than the remaining vowels.
How many wrong guesses do I get?
Six. Correct guesses cost nothing, so the limit applies only to letters that are not in the word.
Are the hints available in Bahasa Malaysia?
Yes — every category hint is translated, so the hint reads Haiwan or Makanan when the interface is set to BM. The hidden words themselves are English.
Why are short words harder?
A four-letter word gives you fewer revealed positions to reason from, so each miss costs proportionally more. Long words look intimidating but usually contain more common letters and more structure to work with.