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How to use the hangman solver
- In Word so far, type the revealed letters in place and a blank for each hidden one. Use an underscore or a question mark, so _ a _ _ e and ?A??E mean the same thing.
- Type every wrong guess into Wrong letters.
- Read the best next letter and the table under it. The percentage is the share of matching words that contain that letter.
"Everyday words only" is ticked to start with, because most hangman words are familiar ones. Untick it to include rarer words. If no everyday word fits, the solver shows the rarer matches on its own.
The one hangman rule that matters most
When a letter is guessed correctly, it appears in every spot it fills. So if the board shows _ A _ _ E, the hidden letters can't be A or E, otherwise those spots would already be showing. The solver applies that rule, which cuts out words a simple pattern search would wrongly include. For _ A _ _ E it rules out EAGLE: the pattern looks right, but EAGLE starts with an E, and that E would already be showing.
Worked example
Say the board shows _ A _ _ E, and S and T were wrong. Enter that and the solver finds 28 everyday words, including BADGE, CABLE, CANOE, DANCE, LADLE, MAPLE, VAGUE and VALUE.
The best next letter is L, found in 11 of the 28 words (39 per cent). G and V come next at 9 words each (32 per cent), then C at 8.
Here is how each outcome plays out:
- If L is wrong, add it to Wrong letters. That leaves 17 words, such as BADGE, CANOE, DANCE and VAGUE.
- If L shows up in the third spot (_ A L _ E), only CALVE, HALVE, VALUE and VALVE are left.
- If L shows up in the fourth spot (_ A _ L E), you're down to CABLE, FABLE, GABLE and MAPLE. B is in three of those four, so it's the obvious next guess.
The solver doesn't promise L is in the word. It tells you which letter gives you the best odds right now based on the words that still fit.
Strategy tips for hangman
- Start with vowels and S, R, T. Among the everyday five letter words in the solver's list, S appears in about half and E in nearly as many. In seven letter words, E shows up in about 70 per cent.
- Let length guide you. The best opening letter changes with the length of the word, so check the table with the right number of blanks rather than relying on a fixed order.
- Use wrong guesses as clues. Each miss rules out words just as surely as a hit. Keep the wrong letters box up to date.
- Look at the shape. A blank after Q is almost always U. If a word ends in N and G, the blank before them is very often I.
- When few words remain, guess the letter that splits them. With four words left, a letter found in two of them tells you more than one found in all four.
Setting the word for a game
Running a game for friends or a class? The random word generator picks a word for you, and the random noun generator is handy when you want something easy to picture. When the coloured tiles of a Wordle-style game are what you're working with, the Wordle solver does the same job, and the cryptogram solver handles puzzles where every letter has been swapped for another.