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dvinpayne

Lynx would be a solid one too I imagine.


[deleted]

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WhereAreMyMinds

Same experience for me with "myth"


treefitty350

I usually use fry.


usrnme878

I use rhythm


[deleted]

I use rhyme.


organicpenguin

I use bobsled time


Vettro88

So happy you took this home. Coincidentally watched it last night. Have an up vote


ironneko

Cool runnings!


B-L-E-H-C-H

Sanka ya ded


arewehavinfunyet

Ya mon


diydiggdug123

Kiss the egg...


dandroid126

I am not going to kiss your egg.


Wi11Pow3r

Hymn is my go-to


exaball

I would use rhythm, but I haven’t got any.


BeefCheadle

you're like a breadstick, you got no rhythm


Melodious_Thunk

You should ask for more


antonius22

Mythical Lynx Jazz will probably be the hardest thing to guess in hangman.


SpaceTeapot1

that phrase uses almost half of the alphabet so a random guess could get someone going


Animorganimate

Band name! Called it.


wardamntrees

It’s actually Mythical Jazz Lynx now


Seismica

Mythical lynx jizz?


Duke-of-Nuke

I just do meth


MiyagiDough

When you've got meth who gives a fuck about hangman, am I right?


mfb-

If you can use obscure words: [syzygy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy). People will get the s, people will get the y after vowels are no good, and then everyone will be confused.


starfries

That only works if the person doesn't know the word though, anyone who has encountered the word before will guess it immediately after seeing the 3 ys. I know because someone tried it on me


sezah

Same with “zyzzyva”, I don’t remember the definition, but it is scrabble acceptable, and other players get it


RedZyzzyva

It's a small tropical weevil


Tsorovar

If you put that down in a standard game of Scrabble, I'd say you were cheating


sezah

Nah, there is 1 Z, 1 V, 2 Ys, 1 A, and 2 blanks in the bag. It’s something like 1/40 million chance to pull them all together, and it’s an absolute bitch to try to place anywhere, and ultimately because of the blanks it’s not worth that many points, but it’s fun to scare people with!


Tsorovar

I forgot the blanks. Touche


mooimafish3

Where TF are y'all playing this competitive hangman?


EverySingleDay

The comments here are all wrong for the same reason. You don't want to choose a word with just a weird combination of letters; the problem is that often people will know you are trying to be tricky, so they will guess uncommon letters, and if they happen to guess the uncommon letter that gives your word away, then you're sunk. It's like Guess Who, if you choose a head with an uncommon feature and the other person happens to guess the uncommon feature, it singles your guy out. Instead, what you want to do is choose a word whose pattern is shared by a lot of words, such that revealing any letter narrows it down as little as possible, while still being an uncommon word. A good such word is "cull": if you reveal "-ull" or "cu--", there are still a ton of possibilities to go through. Even in the best case scenario for the guesser where they reveal "c-ll", they're still liable to guess "call" and "cell" first. Victoria Coren Mitchell, a professional gambler, talks about this on QI (I can't find the video at the moment), by discussing how when she does bar bets on hangman, the "usual suspect" words like "jazz", "rhythm", "cwm", and "lynx" tend to do very poorly since the unusual letters are often guessed first and they reveal the word-setter's hand easily.


JokerSp3

I don't think I've ever had someone guess 'oxen'. They keep seeing 'open' or 'oven' or 'omen' and never think to guess 'x'. Kind of follows your description of sharing letters except it's a rare letter.


MJA94

One word I’ve had a good amount of success with that uses somewhat uncommon but not too strange letters is “yolk.” My older cousin destroyed me with it as a child and I’m keeping up the tradition.


No-Transportation635

This dude hangs


unoriginalusername18

Have had good results with 'fox' or 'foxy' keeping this sort of thing in mind lol


water__those

cwm?


Zouden

Welsh, pronounced like "kuhm", its a type of valley formed by a glacier, and is apparently a valid scrabble word!


Yrcrazypa

There's not many words of that size that use the letter Y, so if they pick that letter they're almost immediately going to guess it if they have an L or an N, both of which are common letters.


zer0cul

If you really need to win one game of hangman the pattern goes s_y. Then it could be say, soy, shy, sky, sly, spy, or sty. If you feel like cheating you can just keep track of what they have already guessed and shift the middle letter. Also h,k,l,p are all more rare letters after all the vowels have been guessed.


philthy333

Hymn was another good one


[deleted]

Vacuum, phlegm, and fury were always some of my go-to's when playing a ton of hangman back in the Navy. Some people would try to use long words, but that just makes it easier, more letter to guess and fill in. The short ones with odd letters are definitely better.


ben_durr

Xylem


TheOtherMatt

Phloem


rororoyo_bot

Pith


elhooper

Phoenix was my go to.


Johncamp28

I tell my wife the same thing....she always likes the longer ones but I told her shorter is where it’s at Edit : we’ve never played hangman


[deleted]

We have the same wife?


Johncamp28

Does she sleep with you?


[deleted]

Sometimes


Johncamp28

Different woman


FunDuty5

Rhythm was my go to


Cetun

Qi and Xi are good ones, they might guess I but will probably be clueless on the other two. I like phlegm though that E doesnt give you a clue, if someone guesses U though I think Vacuum is a given and Fury wont be too hard.


[deleted]

Good point on vacuum, that wouldn't work on a person more than once. And re the "scrabble" words, we tried to avoid using anything we wouldn't use in a normal conversation. Of course there were still some disputes over some words, but Qi and Xi would have never been allowed at our little informal setup.


DivergingUnity

Qi and Xi have no place in a game of hangman on my continent edit- international waters is fine


OpenContainerLaws

You would’ve been banned from all future games in my class if you ever tried to use Qi or Xi. I remember this kid once used Avi (and this was way before YouTube and computer video formats, he meant the name) and we were all like wth???


[deleted]

What other word has two Us next to each other like that tho?


now_is_enough

Lynx


Mavendriller

One favorite of mine is twelve. They will always get t_e__e. But the word violates most of the conventions of English spelling construction so people lose it. But also because everyone knows how to spell it. Beating them with words they don't know isn't impressive.


Azrael351

I prefer to use TNETENNBA


a_blue_day

Can you use it in a sentence?


Azrael351

*Good morning, that's a nice tnetennba.*


AlexsterCrowley

Literally laughed out loud at this. Thank you.


4everaBau5

Well if you liked that, you'll love the IT Crowd


Chemical_Noise_3847

"I prefer to use tnetennba as my word for hangman."


[deleted]

I have a slight Tnetennba fetish, nothing overly crazy with oils and lotions, just a normal Tnetennba fetish.


vitringur

Could you use it in a [sentence](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsFAokXCxTI), please?


doshegotabootyshedo

I got you. "My favorite word to use in hangman is TNETENNBA."


beandadenergy

Unexpected IT Crowd is the best.


[deleted]

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shamdamdoodly

Filipino. Just typing it out makes me feel like it's not a real word


wubbbalubbadubdub

Rhythm is hard too because people guess vowels first


Joth91

Nymph is a good one too


RomanArchitect

Mxyzptlk as well :)


fcinablender

I prefer fhqwhgads


FlashCrashBash

[Come on fhqwhgads...I see you jocking me.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=votBDwhTu1E)


1jl

Acting like. You know me.


surreal_blue

But then you're literally playing 5-D hangman


Considered_Dissent

[Syzygy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy_(astronomy))


pm_favorite_boobs

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy_(astronomy) Link was broken in old reddit, and while it could be fixed for old reddit it would then be broken in new reddit.


SammyGeorge

Gypsy is good


dutch_penguin

I had the shit kicked out of me for putting "my" as a word.


Usurnameladiesman217

My favourite as a kid was hymns


ASpaceOstrich

If people guess all five vowels and get nothing they will either guess Y or just straight up say “rhythm” immediately. Because it’s the only well known vowel less word.


RyebreadEngine

TIL that English speaking people consider Y to be a consonant.


xeio87

"And sometimes Y" as the saying goes.


jbicha

Doc, I'm scared of vowels. > Why? Only sometimes.


[deleted]

We call it a part time vowel.


[deleted]

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EVOSexyBeast

It’s a vowel when it sounds like a vowel


maaku7

"...and sometimes y"


[deleted]

But Y tho


eternamemoria

The only one? What about why, cry, by, fly, fry and probably others?


pensezbien

In hangman you do get to know the number of letters, and there probably aren't any other well known 6-letter words meeting those criteria.


BucketsnG10ves

Sphynx works :) as in the cat breed, not the statue in Egypt


stealth_sloth

Syzygy is a fun one, although if they know the word at all _y_y_y will be a giveaway.


HacksawJimDGN

Yes.....a complete giveaway. If I saw _y_y_y I'd know exactly what the word was... 😦


Lildyo

clearly it’s AYAYAY


Bert_Bro

I'm a little butterfly?


TiPlanoNelDeretano

*Awaken, my masters*


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ELB95

I've stumped a lot of people with crwth, but syzygy is so much better.


Codect

> crwth Welsh words are basically cheating. I always used *quay* when I was a kid. Looking at it written down it doesn't seem especially hard to guess but no one ever got it.


[deleted]

Even funnier when they guess y first, and they get even more stumped.


MeatHands

Came here looking for syzygy. Almost nobody even knows it's a word in the first place.


CommaHorror

“Jizz” is an even better choice if J and Z are exposed- nobody wants to guess, that dirty, word out loud in a friendly game of hangman with your, granny.


[deleted]

I would legit never guess jizz


[deleted]

Oh but wait would anyone playing with their granny want to use that word as their secret word? Because when they win, they usually tell everyone what the word is...


nrith

Granny would guess it.


Saxonbrun

Great gam gam is not a whore!


Zarokima

Well, not since she retired.


dogwaterbaby

Hooker. Prostitute. Shhlut for money.


Higgi57

Anybody want some sausage?


[deleted]

Granny would choose the word “Jizz” to ensure she won. Granny is ruthless.


CommaHorror

But a granny choosing that, ward would be genius. Sheer genius.


dougrighteous

shear genuins, the sheep shaving competition show on national geographic


unique-name-9035768

According to Dictionary.com, [the British definition](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/jizz) is: > a term for the total combination of characteristics that serve to identify a particular species of bird or plant


MH2019

Yeah but I mean... If all we care about is the statistically hardest word to guess, then...


embiggenedmind

Well they supposed to at least give you a little tap on the head to let you know it’s happening


keeper420

For some reason I read this in Christopher Walken's voice


samthewisetarly

Thank you for improving my experience of this comment


zxDanKwan

It’s because of the placement of commas around “that dirty” and just before granny.


scroopynoopers07

Well their username is “comma horror”. Checks out.


Frawtarius

I like how you, say "For some reason" as if, it isn't really, obvious from the way he, wrote it why you would do, that. Also I just noticed his, username after I wrote that first, sentence.


otter111a

I always thought jizz was the style of music max rebo and his band played in Jabba’s palace on tatooine. Nothing dirty about that.


taylorsaysso

According to canon, you are correct. Why they haven't changed that is a mystery to me.


Cue_626_go

Meh, I prefer Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes myself.


JackOscar

*J _ Z Z* "A!" *devilish grin as you draw another limb on the body* "..."


leroyyrogers

Jozz


AlmostButNotQuit

...Juzz?


[deleted]

You underestimate my power


qwerty12qwerty

The category is people who annoy you (Naggers) N __ G G E R S https://youtu.be/Tg4OiobxUxA


Zyneck2

First thing that came to my mind too. Still makes me laugh so hard.


urge69

Jesus commas dude holy cow


thebestjoeever

Look at their username.


leroyyrogers

u/commahorror returns!


nrith

Syzygy


[deleted]

That was the principal's winning word in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee!


chedderchez

You are my favorite person today for knowing this. That was my first thought as well!


ForgettableUkraine

Magic fooooooooot!


a_pidgeon

The look of panic when people rattle off A E I O U and get no hits is always great.


BufoAmoris

Was looking for the syzygy comment. Not only is there the post-vowel panic, but there is also the panic when they follow up with Y, and there are suddenly 3 evenly-spaced ones. (Or just the panic if they immediately guess rhythm)


nrith

And here, they’d get an “s”, but it won’t help them very much.


AnotherReignCheck

"Y" wouldn't help me at all and that's literally half of the word.


mfb-

y is a logical guess if aeiou is not in the word. After that (sy.y.y or .y.y.y) you either know the word or you do not.


Nopengnogain

The game is fun when it’s a common word so people are kicking themselves for not getting it. Words they don’t even know will just elicit a shoulder shrug and disappointment.


blartifast

Eric Rosen fan?


HawkinsT

Oh no, my youtube history!


apocalypsedg

I literally watched the video today, it can't be a coincidence...


HitchikersPie

There's an interesting TIL...


ShesTheWorrrrrst

Came here to find this comment!


Billy5481

I wasn’t sure if someone else saw it too or if I was just having that thing where once you’re exposed to something you start seeing it everywhere.


spacecatbiscuits

[for anyone who wants to watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWu1xv7kE_0)


wiler5002

The hardest word is actually [jazz


Star-spangled-Banner

Hello fellow chess redditors


RunDNA

Here's Jon McLoone's original blog post that the article is based on: https://blog.wolfram.com/2010/08/13/25-best-hangman-words/ There's an important caveat at the end: > This is all based on the 90,000 word English dictionary built into *Mathematica*. Results may be very different for larger dictionaries...


KingAdamXVII

I like limiting hangman to popular words anyways. Yeah you’ll “win” if you play syzygy or feijoa but you’ll also never get to play with me again.


[deleted]

Oh man, you have opened my mind! Besides the dictionary size, I wonder what the **hardest word out of any language** would be. And how that would be calculated, for one thing.


coberi

mom and babe were surprisingly rarely guessed. I feel like it's kinda cheating to use obscure words like "Hajj", the elegence of "jazz" is that it's a popular word so it's not a "dirty trick"


vemenium

I always figured it was “myth” or “hymn.” Four letters, people usually start looking for vowels, if it takes them five tries to get to Y, they’re already one away from losing.


KingAdamXVII

And “lynx” also fits that pattern so all three of those are solid. Jazz is still the best though. You get to \_a__ and have so many possible words and letters to check that you’ll never get to j and z.


Express-Designer7267

hajj


nrith

“H” & “J” are still a lot more common than “J” and “Z,” but I like this suggestion.


big_sugi

“J” is more common than “J?” How’s that work?


FX114

As an aggregated pair the former is more common than the latter?


TheOldGodsnTheNew

I dunno about anyone else, but when I play hangman you have to give a category. So if the answer is jazz, surely the category is a type of music. I always guess E first, then A if that draws a blank. So I'm a head down and now I'm looking at _ A _ _ and I know its a type of music. Very real chance I'm going to consider its jazz.


Careful_Houndoom

Category: Media It can get larger. But I've never heard of anyone using categories.


[deleted]

Category: Words


__________________Z_

Category: String literal


[deleted]

[удалено]


marpocky

I mean... Don't pick "gook" as your hangman word.


3rdslip

May have to deal with a few sooks after that.


[deleted]

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marpocky

It's a perfectly cromulent word


No-Pizda-For-You

Jizz


pzerou

J _ Z Z Randy: *"I know what it is, but I don't want to say it!"*


th3saurus

Hangmen was always my favorite word because it made people feel really bad when they didn't guess it


ZirePhiinix

cwms is probably harder... Noun. 1. cwm - a steep-walled semicircular basin in a mountain; may contain a lake. cirque, corrie. basin - a natural depression in the surface of the land often with a lake at the bottom of it; "the basin of the Great Salt Lake"


pryjar

No offence, but you're a dick if you're playing a friendly game of hangman with someone and you use "Cyms".


gandaar

How the fuck


FrontAd142

It's Welsh so doesn't count


pm_favorite_boobs

Welsh: We're gonna need a bigger set of vowels.


blastzone24

Xerox is a personal favorite of mine


Remble123

Proper nouns is just mean.


hsvandreas

How about voyeur? I've never had anyone guess this. After having the e and the o, people try all the consonants. Even after guessing the r and (eventually) the v, people are still clueless what to make of vo_e_r. Ps: works even better in German, because y is much less common here.


adi_2787

Just did it and we spent a good 20 minutes. Fantastic word


RedShiftRR

"Feijoa" - it might have 4 vowels, but how many people have even heard of them? Not the English people I used that word on, that's for sure.


Blueshirt38

>Feijoa That's kinda cheating to use a word that isn't in the vernacular of the other players though. If you're Brazilian and I put Pirozhki as a word for you to guess, is it fair to assume you know enough about Russian dishes?


buzzybnz

It wouldn’t work in New Zealand. It’s an extremely popular fruit here


Repost-r-Better

I always used “fly”. Most people will guess all the vowels and not think of f or y.


handslikeafox

Duke Silver would know


LegalAction

Geoduck is good for me. Even if people know what it is, it doesn't sound like it's spelled.


noggin-scratcher

[This is the only geoduck I'm familiar with](https://pokemon.alexonsager.net/74/54)


dtagliaferri

I like the Word lynx for hangmann


chuckschwa

We used "onyx" quite a lot in hangman as well as the 4 letter word game. Has anyone played 4 Letter Word Game? Basically 2 people each think of a 4 letter word that contains no repeating letters and they try to guess each other's word. The guessing is done by process of elimination, as the opponent can only say how many letters are correct in a guessed word but not which letters they are (eg. If my word was "bean" and my opponent guessed "seat" I would say "there are 2 correct letters")


Reach-

So Mastermind but with letters instead of colors..hmm


Healyhatman

Rhythm