Hangman words
5 Letter Hangman Words
Five-letter hangman words ranked by difficulty, from wacky and foggy to would and might. The length where a good guess strategy starts to pay off.
Read the word list
Five letters is the length most people picture when they think of hangman, and it is where strategy begins to matter. The solver averages 3.7 wrong guesses on five-letter words, comfortably inside a standard game. Among the 1,765 such words in our top 15,000, e appears in 44.6 percent and a in 41.4 percent, followed by r, o and t, so a sensible opening has a decent chance of hitting.
That makes the hard end of this length interesting. The 60 words listed score 7 to 9, and they are the ones where the usual letters let a player down. Wacky and foggy top the list at 9. Would, might, maybe, happy and quick follow at 8. Several have a doubled or unusual letter (foggy, happy, stuff), several end in y, and several use a rare consonant such as w, k or q.
The hardest list claimed its twelve toughest five-letter words first, so none of them appear here. What remains is still a demanding set, made of words everyone has used.
60 entries. Our solver needed 7.6 wrong guesses on average: 0 easy, 0 medium and 60 hard. The toughest is wacky (9 misses), the quickest which (7).
- wacky Hard · 9
- foggy Hard · 9
- would Hard · 8
- might Hard · 8
- maybe Hard · 8
- happy Hard · 8
- worth Hard · 8
- stuff Hard · 8
- drive Hard · 8
- crazy Hard · 8
- quick Hard · 8
- fully Hard · 8
- knife Hard · 8
- robin Hard · 8
- pound Hard · 8
- punch Hard · 8
- brick Hard · 8
- wives Hard · 8
- sunny Hard · 8
- badge Hard · 8
- width Hard · 8
- hobby Hard · 8
- bravo Hard · 8
- juicy Hard · 8
- tying Hard · 8
- chunk Hard · 8
- hicks Hard · 8
- havoc Hard · 8
- tummy Hard · 8
- fumes Hard · 8
- picky Hard · 8
- husky Hard · 8
- quack Hard · 8
- which Hard · 7
- think Hard · 7
- world Hard · 7
- found Hard · 7
- court Hard · 7
- given Hard · 7
- light Hard · 7
- month Hard · 7
- chief Hard · 7
- brown Hard · 7
- focus Hard · 7
- judge Hard · 7
- twice Hard · 7
- mouth Hard · 7
- birth Hard · 7
- magic Hard · 7
- print Hard · 7
- rough Hard · 7
- mount Hard · 7
- thick Hard · 7
- badly Hard · 7
- pitch Hard · 7
- virus Hard · 7
- buddy Hard · 7
- forth Hard · 7
- juice Hard · 7
- shake Hard · 7
Words worth a closer look
- wackyScores 9. The w and k are uncommon letters, the y is a late guess, and only the a is an obvious vowel.
- foggyScores 9. A double g and a final y, with only the o to find early. The doubled consonant is a poor early guess.
- wouldScores 8. The o and u sit side by side, and the silent l is an odd guess, so the shape is hard to predict.
- mightScores 8. The _ight family (light, night, right, sight, tight, fight) is crowded, and the vowel i only confirms it.
- happyScores 8. A double p and a final y. Players who find a and p still have to choose the right two remaining letters.
- quickScores 8. The q and the ck ending are both unusual, though the u follows q almost every time.
- stuffScores 8. A double f is a poor opening guess, and u is the only vowel.
- robinScores 8. A bird and a name. The r, b and n are all middling letters, so the early guesses scatter.
How to use this list
Five-letter words are the best all-round choice for a class. A group of fifth graders will win most rounds on the good hangman words list and lose about half of these, so there is real competition. Adults will find the first few guesses straightforward and the last two painful.
As a teaching point, ask players to explain why a word like would is hard when its letters are so common. The answer, that the pattern allows would, could, should and many other words, is a useful lesson in reasoning from what is left rather than from what is likely. The strategy guide follows the same idea.
Print a 5 Letter Hangman worksheet
Eight puzzles on one US Letter page, with a clue, letter blanks, an empty frame to draw in, an alphabet strip to cross off and circles to count misses. Page two is the answer key.
Need another sheet?
Draw eight different words from this list, right here. Same layout, new answer key.
Keep going
- 4 Letter Hangman WordsFour-letter hangman words ranked by difficulty, from duty and bold to junk and haze. See why four letters still cost the solver five guesses on average.
- 6 Letter Hangman WordsSix-letter hangman words ranked by difficulty, from bought and bright to oxygen and puzzle. Words that stay medium-hard even with common letters.
- Good Hangman WordsGood hangman words for everyday play: common five to eight letter words that take three to five wrong guesses, so rounds are close without being cruel.
- Hardest Hangman WordsThe hardest hangman words in everyday English, ranked by how many wrong guesses a sensible player makes. Play the list online or print it.
- Hangman Strategy for Guessers and SettersHangman strategy built on data from 15,000 common words: which letters to guess first by word length, when to switch, and how to pick hard words as setter.
- Hangman Letter FrequencyLetter frequency for hangman from 15,000 common words: the percent of words containing each of the 26 letters, and the best first guesses by word length.