Skip to the Game
Letters 4 5 6 7 8
Guesses left 6
Spelling

Hangman

Hangman, online and free

Play hangman online free: guess the word a letter at a time with six wrong guesses to spare. Four to eight letters, your choice of spelling, and nothing to install.

How to Play

  1. Guess a letter, not a word

    Type it or click it. If the letter is in the word it appears everywhere it occurs at once — guessing L in LEVEL fills both. If it is not, you lose one of your six guesses.

  2. Six wrong guesses, and the same wrong letter only costs one

    Pressing the same wrong key twice does not cost a second life. You learned nothing new from it, so charging you would be the game punishing a slip of the hand.

  3. Start with the vowels, then the common consonants

    Almost every word has at least one of A, E, I, O or U, so those are near-free information. After that, R, S, T, L and N appear in far more words than the rest of the alphabet put together.

  4. The word is always shown at the end

    Lose, and you are told what it was straight away. Being left to look it up somewhere else is how people find a spoiler for something they had not played yet.

More free word games and tools

Wordle Unlimited Play wordle unlimited free, as many rounds as you like, at four to eleven letters. The practice mode the daily game never gave you, with no one-a-day limit and nothing to sign up to. Wordle Archive Every past wordle puzzle, still playable and still free. Catch up on the ones you missed, or play old wordle puzzles from the very beginning, with no account and no subscription. Mini Crossword A free online crossword in five by five, with real clues written from a dictionary rather than trivia. An easy crossword you can finish in a couple of minutes, new every day. Word Search Word search online at four difficulties, on a grid generated fresh every time so you never meet the same puzzle twice. There are printable word search sheets too if you would rather use a pen. Spelling Bee The spelling bee game with your spelling, not ours: seven letters, one in the middle, and every word you can build from them. A daily spelling bee puzzle plus every hive we have set before it. Boggle Play boggle free on a four by four tray: trace every word you can find through touching letters before the clock runs out. A word grid game that scores longer finds higher. Text Twist Text twist online and free: six letters, and every word they can make, against the clock. A word scramble game where finding the six-letter word opens the next round. Word Ladder A word ladder puzzle: change one letter at a time to get from the first word to the last, and every rung has to be a real word. Solve it in as few steps as you can. Cryptogram Cryptogram puzzles in a letter substitution cipher, in the cryptoquote style. Crack a single letter and it fills in everywhere at once, until the whole quote reads. Sight Word Games Sight word bingo on a four by four card: a word is called and your child finds it. Built on the Dolch sight words schools have set since 1936, for the words that cannot be sounded out. Phonics Games Phonics games for children learning to read: sound out CVC words one letter at a time, with the missing sound to find. Phonics practice for kids that speaks the word aloud. Wordle for Kids Wordle for kids, age-banded for five to thirteen at three to five letters. Word games for kids that stay inside vocabulary a child that age actually meets, with no ads during play. Wordle Solver A free wordle solver and wordle helper: enter the letters you have found and where they sit, and see every word still possible. No account, and it never shows you the answer unasked. Word Unscrambler Unscramble words instantly: type your letters and get every word they make, longest first. A letter unscrambler that works on anything from three letters to a full rack. Anagram Solver An anagram solver that uses every letter you give it, not just some of them. Rearrange a word or a name into the real words hiding inside it. Word Finder Find words with letters you already hold, and say where they sit. A word finder tool for a board you are part way through rather than a blank rack. Scrabble Word Finder Every playable word from your Scrabble rack, scored on official tile values and sorted highest first. A scrabble helper for the word you cannot quite see. Words With Friends Finder Your rack scored on Words With Friends tile values, which are not the Scrabble ones, against the dictionary that game actually accepts. A words with friends cheat that knows the difference. Crossword Solver A crossword clue solver for a half-filled grid: give it the letters you have and a question mark for the rest, and see every answer that fits.

Hangman questions, answered

How many wrong guesses do I get?

Six, at every word length. A longer word is harder to guess but not more forgiving, which is what makes eight letters a genuinely different game from four.

Why is there no figure in the drawing?

Because the rest of this site takes words like NOOSE and LYNCH out of its word lists as unsuitable, and drawing a hanging a click later would contradict that. The frame still builds a piece at a time and you still get six wrong guesses — the game is unchanged.

Where do the words come from?

The same curated pool as the rest of the site: everyday words, no proper nouns, nothing obscure. You can also choose US, UK or Australian spelling.

Can I play with a physical keyboard?

Yes. Just type. The on-screen letters are there for phones and for anybody who would rather click.

What is the best first letter in hangman?

E, by a distance — it appears in about half of all common five-letter words. A, R and S are the next most useful. Q, J, X and Z are worth almost nothing early on.