Charades words

What makes a good charades word

A good charades word is easy to see and hard to say. It has a shape, an action or a feeling a person can show without a sound. "Penguin" is a great word: the waddle, the flippers and the cold give it away in seconds. "Thursday" is a poor word: nothing about it can be shown, so the actor ends up spelling, which most rules do not allow.

When you choose words for charades, check three things:

• Can it be shown? Things, animals, jobs and actions can be acted. Abstract words, dates and numbers usually cannot.
• Does everyone know it? A word only half the room knows is a lost turn. Pick words that suit the youngest or least experienced player, or put harder slips in a separate category.
• Is it right for the room? A teacher wrote in an app review that an offensive term came up in front of her class. Every word here was written for this site and checked to be fine for a family room.

Single words, scenes and phrases

Charades words come in three sizes. Single words, like "Elephant" or "Umbrella", are quick and suit kids and warm up rounds. Scenes, like "Making a sandwich" or "Changing a light bulb", let the actor build a little story, and they are where most of the laughs come from. Phrases, like "Break the ice" or "Head in the clouds", are for experienced players who know the signals for words and syllables.

The hat mixes all three if you tick several categories. Little kids, Animals and Food are mostly single words. Actions, Jobs and Holidays are mostly scenes. Hard phrases are idioms.

Words to leave out

Leave out names of real people unless everyone in the group knows them well, brand names that only some people know, and words that can only be spelled. Many groups also leave out titles of films and books, because the rules for showing a title, like cranking a camera for a movie, slow the game down for new players. If your group loves film charades, add the titles as your own slips.

Easy, medium and hard words

Each category on this site has a level. Easy categories, like Animals and Little kids, are things a young child can name and show with one gesture. Medium categories, like Jobs, Sports and games and Feelings and moods, need a short scene or a facial expression held long enough for the room to read it. Hard phrases are sayings and idioms that need the word and syllable signals or a clever picture. A good evening often starts easy and gets harder as people warm up, so try two easy categories first and add a medium one after a few turns.

If one player is much younger or newer to the game, give their team the easy categories on their turns. The hat lets you change categories between turns without losing the score.

How many words do you need?

A 60 second turn uses about 4 to 8 slips. With two teams of four playing for half an hour, that is about 150 slips. The 450 words here cover a long evening without repeats, and the hat keeps track of which ones you already played.

Use the words as a list or as a game

To read the full list, see charades ideas by category. To play, use the hat at the top of this page: pick categories, set the timer and pass the phone. If you would rather write your own words, fold them into the hat or play the three round bowl game, where the players write every slip.