Poltergeist11 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: From the German for noisy spirit, the kind blamed for knocking and moving furniture.
Werewolf8 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A person who grows fur and claws under a full moon.
Turnip6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The root vegetable carved into lanterns in Ireland and Scotland before anyone used a squash.
Barmbrack9 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: An Irish fruitcake baked with a ring hidden inside.
Vulture7 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A bald-headed scavenger bird that circles high overhead.
Fright6 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A sudden scare.
Pumpkin7 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The native North American squash that took over from the turnip because it is softer and much larger.
Wizard6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: A man of magic with a staff, a robe and a long beard.
Banshee7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: In Irish folklore, a female spirit known for her wailing.
Samhain7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: The Gaelic festival that marked the end of harvest, held from 31 October to 1 November.
Banshee7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: In Irish folklore, a female spirit known for her wailing.
Gargoyle8 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: A stone beast on a cathedral roof that spouts rainwater.
Ghost5 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: A spirit under a white sheet, the simplest costume there is.
Ghoul5 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A creature of legend that lurks among the graves.
Goblin6 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A small, ugly troublemaker from old folk tales.
Mummy5 letters, hard to guess, 8 misses. Clue: Wrapped head to toe in bandages, straight out of an Egyptian tomb.
Phantom7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: Another word for an apparition, seen but not solid.
Poltergeist11 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: From the German for noisy spirit, the kind blamed for knocking and moving furniture.
Skeleton8 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: A full set of bones with nothing on them.
Vampire7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: A caped count who sleeps by day and keeps away from garlic.
Werewolf8 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A person who grows fur and claws under a full moon.
Witch5 letters, hard to guess, 8 misses. Clue: She wears a pointed hat and has long been linked with black cats.
Wizard6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: A man of magic with a staff, a robe and a long beard.
Zombie6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: One of the walking dead, slow and groaning.
Creatures of the night 12
Bat3 letters, hard to guess, 14 misses. Clue: The only mammal capable of true flight, and it roosts upside down.
Cat3 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: The black kind has long been linked with witches.
Centipede9 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: A many-legged crawler whose name means hundred feet.
Crow4 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: A clever black bird with a harsh caw.
Moth4 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: It flutters around the porch light after dark.
Owl3 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: A night hunter with big eyes and a hooting call.
Rat3 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A long-tailed rodent of cellars and sewers.
Raven5 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: The big black bird of an 1845 poem, where its only word is Nevermore.
Spider6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: Eight legs, and the maker of every web on the porch.
Tarantula9 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: A large, hairy member of the eight-legged family.
Toad4 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A warty cousin of the frog.
Vulture7 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A bald-headed scavenger bird that circles high overhead.
Costumes and candy 14
Candy5 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: It fills the bag by the end of the night.
Cape4 letters, hard to guess, 8 misses. Clue: Tied at the neck, it swirls behind a vampire.
Costume7 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: What you wear to become someone else for one night.
Disguise8 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: Anything worn so that nobody knows it is you.
Fangs5 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: Plastic teeth that turn a smile into a vampire's.
Flashlight10 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Carry one after dark so drivers can see you.
Lollipop8 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: Hard candy on a stick.
Mask4 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: It covers the face, and in Ireland and Scotland the old name for it was a false face.
Pillowcase10 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: Bedding that doubles as a roomy bag for the night's haul.
Pirate6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: An eye patch, a hook and a parrot on the shoulder.
Princess8 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A gown, a tiara and sometimes a wand.
Superhero9 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A crime fighter with special powers and a secret identity.
Treat5 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: The friendly half of the question asked at every door.
Wig3 letters, hard to guess, 10 misses. Clue: Fake hair that finishes the outfit.
Haunted house and graveyard 14
Broomstick10 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: How a witch gets around.
Candle6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: A wick in wax that lights the carved face from inside.
Cauldron8 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The big iron pot a witch stirs.
Cemetery8 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: A burial ground, and a spelling trap: the only vowel letter in it is E, three times.
Cobweb6 letters, hard to guess, 8 misses. Clue: An old, dusty web in the corner of the ceiling.
Coffin6 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: The long wooden box a vampire sleeps in.
Crypt5 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A stone chamber under a church.
Graveyard9 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: A burial ground beside a church.
Lantern7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: A carved one with a light inside is named after a fellow called Jack.
Midnight8 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: Twelve o'clock, the witching hour in many stories.
Potion6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: A magic liquid, bubbling and usually green.
Pumpkin7 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The native North American squash that took over from the turnip because it is softer and much larger.
Skull5 letters, hard to guess, 7 misses. Clue: The bone inside your head, and an old reminder that life is short.
Tombstone9 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: A carved stone marker over a grave, and a common yard decoration.
Spooky sounds and feelings 12
Boo3 letters, hard to guess, 8 misses. Clue: What a ghost says, and what you shout as you jump out.
Cackle6 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: A witch's laugh.
Creepy6 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: It makes your skin crawl.
Eerie5 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Strange and quiet in a way that feels wrong, and four of its five letters are vowels.
Fright6 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: A sudden scare.
Goosebumps10 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: Little bumps that rise on your arms when you are cold or scared.
Howl4 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: The long cry of a wolf at the moon.
Macabre7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Grim and deathly in style, as in the French name for the medieval dance of death.
Nightmare9 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: A bad dream.
Scream6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The loudest sound you make when something jumps out.
Shriek6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: A short, high-pitched cry.
Spooky6 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: Scary in a fun, ghostly way.
Traditions and history 14
Barmbrack9 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: An Irish fruitcake baked with a ring hidden inside.
Bobbing7 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: Lifting a floating apple out of a tub using only your teeth.
Carving7 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: Cutting a face into a squash, recorded in America in 1837.
Colcannon9 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: An Irish dish of mashed potatoes with cabbage, one of the foods of the night in Ireland.
Divination10 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: Telling the future, as old party games did with apple peel and roasted nuts.
Guising7 letters, easy to guess, 2 misses. Clue: The Scottish and Irish custom of going house to house in costume, reciting verses for food.
Hallows7 letters, medium to guess, 5 misses. Clue: An old word for saints, and the root of the holiday's name.
October7 letters, easy to guess, 1 miss. Clue: The month whose 31st and last day is the big night.
Prank5 letters, hard to guess, 6 misses. Clue: The mischief threatened by the other half of the question at the door.
Samhain7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: The Gaelic festival that marked the end of harvest, held from 31 October to 1 November.
Souling7 letters, medium to guess, 4 misses. Clue: Going door to door for small cakes in return for prayers, a custom at least as old as the 15th century.
Superstition12 letters, easy to guess, no misses. Clue: A belief that a black cat or a broken mirror changes your luck.
Toffee6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: In Britain and Ireland, the sticky coating on a whole apple.
Turnip6 letters, medium to guess, 3 misses. Clue: The root vegetable carved into lanterns in Ireland and Scotland before anyone used a squash.
How it works
Halloween hangman words work best when they come from the night itself: Cauldron, Banshee, Cobweb, Guising. This page holds 80 in six themes, and every word shows its letter count, a miss count and a clue. Press Pick 10 new words, keep the phone to yourself, choose one and draw the blanks.
Read the full guide
Set a word between trick-or-treaters
Read the clue out when the guessing stalls. The list that reads All words narrows the deal to one of six themes, from Monsters and spirits to Traditions and history. The levels and lengths under More filters work with it. Monsters and spirits with Easy to guess leaves five: Skeleton, Werewolf, Goblin, Banshee, Poltergeist.
Why Bat beats Poltergeist
Each count was measured by a program that knows a dictionary (how the test works). It missed twice or less on 25 words (easy) and six times or more on 17 (hard). Length decides most of it: the six three-letter words cost 8.3 misses on average, the 15 words of nine letters or more cost 1.5, and Poltergeist, Superstition and Nightmare cost none.
Skip the gallows and draw a spider: a body, then one leg per miss, eight in all.
Cemetery is the spelling trap: the only vowel letter in it is E, three times. Copy it from the page.
Turnip is here on purpose: lanterns were carved from turnips in Ireland and Scotland before the softer, larger pumpkin took over in North America.
Questions and answers
Why is Bat the hardest word on the list?
It cost 14 misses, the most of the 80. With A and T showing, the blanks still fit Cat, Hat, Mat, Rat and Sat, so the guesser must call them one by one. Wig is next at 10, then Witch, Mummy, Cobweb, Cape and Boo at 8. Creatures of the night is the toughest theme: its 12 words cost 5.1 misses on average.
How scary are the words?
Mildly. The list has no gore, no film characters and no devils or demons. The darkest words are Coffin, Crypt, Skull and Tombstone, all under Haunted house and graveyard. For a nervous group choose Costumes and candy. Or choose More filters and press Easy to guess for 25 words such as Skeleton and Broomstick.
What do Guising and Souling mean?
Both are older than trick-or-treating. Souling was going door to door for soul cakes in return for prayers, since at least the 15th century. Guising is the Scottish and Irish name for calling at houses in costume for food or coins. The phrase trick or treat first appeared in print in 1917.