Hangman Solver,
the best next letter.

Field guide

How to win hangman with the odds on your side.

A hangman solver works backwards from what the board already shows. Every revealed letter and every wrong guess removes words from the dictionary, and the words that survive tell you which letter is most likely to come next. This page keeps that bookkeeping for you, for single words and for multi-word phrases.

How to use the tool

• Type the pattern. Use an underscore for each blank, with or without spaces: _ a _ _ e and _a__e are the same board. A question mark or a period also works as a blank.
• Add the wrong letters you have already guessed, such as s t. Click a red chip to take one back out.
• Read the answer. The large letter is the best next guess and the list underneath shows every word that fits. If the guess misses, press the red button to record it. If it hits, type it into the pattern.
• Phrases: separate the words with a slash or two spaces, for example _ _ _ e / _ _ _ _ _. Each word is matched on its own and the letters are ranked across the whole phrase.

The rule that makes hangman different

When you guess a letter correctly, hangman reveals every position of it at once. That means the blanks can never hold a letter that is already showing. In _ a _ _ e the hidden word has no second A and no other E, so eagle is out even though it fits the shape. A plain crossword pattern finder does not know this and keeps such words in its results, which is why this solver applies the rule for you.

How the best letter is chosen

For each letter you have not guessed, the solver counts the remaining words that contain it. A word counts once even if it repeats the letter.

The highest chance goes first, because it is the guess least likely to cost you a life. For a phrase the chances for each word are combined as 1 − (1 − p₁)(1 − p₂)…, which is the chance that at least one word contains the letter.

Worked example

Take the board _ a _ _ e. In the ENABLE word list used here, 115 five-letter words fit. R appears in 34 of them (29.6%), S in 31 (27.0%) and L in 27 (23.5%), so R is the best next guess. Now suppose S and T were earlier misses. Only 69 words remain and R rises to 34.8%, found in 24 of them. If R misses too, 45 words are left and L leads with 14 (31.1%), ahead of C and M. Each answer narrows the list, so the ranking gets sharper with every guess.

Opening guesses by word length

With nothing revealed, the best opener changes with the length of the word. In this list A leads for three- and four-letter words, S leads for five letters at 46.3%, and E leads from six letters (61.2%) up to ten (76.5%). Longer words are more likely to contain E, which is why a long blank pattern usually opens with it.

Tips for choosing guesses

• Count the blanks first. A short word and a long word have different best openers, so enter the length before anything else.
• Use the position clues. Once a letter is revealed, its place in the word rules out many candidates at once, so a single hit can cut the list sharply.
• Trust the shrinking list. When only a handful of words remain, read them and guess a letter that separates the leading candidates rather than a very common one.
• Record every miss. Wrong letters remove candidates just as hits do, and the solver uses both.

Limits to keep in mind

The ENABLE list holds about 172,000 words, with no proper nouns and many rare entries, and it has no word frequencies, so every word is treated as equally likely. Hyphens, apostrophes and digits are ignored. If your game uses a smaller, friendlier vocabulary, the answer is often one of the more familiar words in the list even though the ranking cannot know that.

Disclaimer: This tool is an independent word-game helper and is not affiliated with, authorized, or endorsed by the publisher of any hangman game or app. Any game names or trademarks belong to their respective owners. Suggestions come from the public-domain ENABLE word list and are provided for practice and entertainment only.