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Pirates Hangman Words
Pirate hangman words about ships, sailing, maps and buried treasure, chosen to be friendly for kids and useful for themed parties and lessons.
Read the word list
Pirate stories are a reliable favorite with children, and the vocabulary is rich in real sailing terms. This list keeps to the friendly side of the theme: the parts of a ship, the tools of navigation, the places a crew might visit, and the treasure they hope to find. Words such as mast, deck, anchor and rudder are the same ones that appear in a basic unit on boats and seafaring.
Difficulty varies a good deal. Map, flag, gold and bow are short and easy to solve. Starboard, doubloon, sextant and buccaneer ask for the less common letters, and buoy has a vowel pair that surprises many spellers. The phrases, among them treasure map and message in a bottle, play well at a themed birthday party, because the group can shout out letters while one person fills in the blanks.
74 entries. Our solver needed 3.5 wrong guesses on average: 20 easy, 32 medium and 22 hard. The toughest is wave (12 misses), the quickest treasure (0).
- ship Medium · 4
- sail Easy · 1
- anchor Medium · 2
- captain Medium · 2
- crew Medium · 3
- treasure Easy · 0
- chest Easy · 1
- map Hard · 11
- compass Medium · 4
- parrot Medium · 4
- flag Hard · 5
- mast Medium · 4
- deck Hard · 8
- hull Hard · 6
- rudder Medium · 4
- helm Hard · 5
- bow Hard · 9
- stern Medium · 2
- port Hard · 6
- starboard Medium · 3
- cabin Hard · 5
- galley Medium · 4
- voyage Medium · 4
- island Medium · 2
- ocean Medium · 4
- harbor Medium · 2
- lagoon Easy · 1
- cove Hard · 10
- shipwreck Easy · 0
- barrel Easy · 1
- sextant Easy · 1
- spyglass Medium · 3
- telescope Easy · 0
- lantern Easy · 1
- rope Hard · 6
- knot Medium · 4
- rigging Easy · 1
- diamond Easy · 1
- jewel Medium · 2
- gold Hard · 10
- silver Hard · 5
- coins Hard · 5
- ruby Hard · 11
- emerald Easy · 1
- pearl Medium · 2
- bandana Medium · 3
- buccaneer Easy · 0
- pirate Medium · 2
- sailor Medium · 3
- navigator Medium · 2
- horizon Medium · 3
- tide Medium · 4
- wave Hard · 12
- storm Medium · 2
- lighthouse Easy · 0
- buoy Hard · 8
- cargo Medium · 2
- ahoy Hard · 5
- shanty Easy · 1
- monkey Hard · 6
- treasure map Hard · 6
- treasure chest Easy · 0
- message in a bottle Easy · 1
- crow's nest Medium · 3
- jolly roger Hard · 6
- ship's wheel Medium · 4
- set sail Medium · 2
- deserted island Easy · 0
- buried treasure Medium · 2
- sea shanty Easy · 1
- pirate ship Easy · 1
- anchors away Medium · 2
- full speed ahead Hard · 5
- land ho Hard · 6
Words worth a closer look
- starboardFrom the Old English for steering side, since early ships were steered with an oar over the right side. Port is the opposite side, the left.
- treasureEnglish got this word through Latin from Greek thesauros, a store of valuables. Treasure shares the root of thesaurus, a book that stores words.
- sextantFrom the Latin for a sixth, because its scale is an arc covering one sixth of a circle. Sailors used it to measure the angle of the sun or a star above the horizon.
- buccaneerComes from the French boucanier, a person who smoked meat on a wooden frame called a boucan. The double c and the double e make it a hard word to hit on the first try.
- galleyThe kitchen on a ship, and the name of an old kind of oared vessel. A double l and a final y make it easy to find once a and e are in.
- buoyOnly four letters, but three are vowels or near vowels and the ou order is a classic trap. In British English it is often said as boy, while Americans say boo-ee.
- jolly rogerThe traditional name of the pirate flag. The j and the g are the rare letters, which makes the phrase tougher than it looks.
- ahoyA call used to hail a ship. Four letters, with the h and y as the unusual ones, and it is a good quick opener for younger players.
Using this list in class
Teachers planning a unit on exploration or ocean travel can use the ship words to make a labeled diagram: bow, stern, mast, deck, hull, rudder and helm. Play one word at a time, and let students add each one to a drawing as it is solved. Compass, sextant and map link to a short lesson on how sailors found their way before satellites.
At a pirate-themed party, put the phrases on a large sheet of paper and let guests call out letters between treasure hunt clues. For a book week or a summer reading club, use shipwreck, island, voyage and treasure as a warm-up before a story. Parents can print a sheet for a rainy afternoon and play with the children in costume.
Print a Pirates 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.
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