The Best Words for Hangman

Maximizing Your Chances of Winning

• If maximizing your changes of winning at hangman is your aim, several approaches to finding the best words are available to you. The harder your word is to guess, the more likely your opponent is to use up their guesses and lose. Words are more difficult to guess the more uncommon letters they contain. Oxford Dictionaries calculated the frequency of every letter of the English alphabet and determined that "E" is the most commonly occurring letter, followed by "A" and "R," while "X," "Z," "J" and "Q" occur the least often, in descending order. Therefore, using a word that contains as many infrequently occurring letters as possible increases the difficulty of your word for your opponent. According to an algorithm developed by Wolfram Research, "jazz" is the best hangman word, due to its high percentage of infrequently occurring letters.

Developing Vocabulary

• Teachers can use hangman as an educational activity to reinforce vocabulary or spelling lessons in school. In this case, the best words are words that are new to hangman players. Teachers can have students select words from a vocabulary list, and then guessers face the challenge of remembering the correct spelling of the new word. The definition can be given as a clue to make the game easier. Alternatively, players can use a dictionary to help them think of a good word to play, as well as help them guess the word.

Age Appropriate Words

• The best words for hangman, in terms of length and meaning, vary depending on age. Smaller children will only be able to guess and spell short, simple words, whereas for high school students, such words will be boring and unchallenging. Instead, high school students can use words from an SAT hit list, such as The Princeton Review's "Hit Parade." If hangman is played in an educational setting, the best words are clean and include no slang.

Hangman Variation

• A variation of hangman which maximizes your chances of winning is to change the word as your opponent guesses. For example, if your word is "take" and your opponent has already guessed "A," "K" and "E," and then guesses "T," you can change the letter to "M," and then when she guesses "M," change it to "R," and so on, until either your opponent runs out of chances or you run out of possible letters to replace "T" with. The best words for this approach are words that have similar spellings where you can change one or two letters to make different words, such as "hat," "pat," "rat," and so on. Note that this method may be considered cheating and should be decided upon before beginning the game.