Ghost (game)

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Ghost is a simple word game for two or more players. You don’t need any equipment, though you can use pencil and paper if you like. Players take turns saying one letter to add to a growing word fragment. Every time you add a letter, the fragment must be the start of some real word.

If a player thinks the current fragment can’t start any word, they can challenge the last player. If the challenged player can name a word that starts with the fragment, the challenger loses the round; if they can’t, the challenged player loses. If someone accidentally completes a real word, they lose the round. To make the game fair, there’s usually a minimum word length (like three or four letters).

The loser of a round gets a letter from the word GHOST (G, H, O, S, T). When a player has all five letters, they’re out of the game. After each round, the next player starts the new round.

There are many variants:
- Superghost: you can add a letter at the beginning or the end of the fragment.
- Fore-and-Aft (also called Lexicant or Llano): you can reverse the direction you’re adding letters.
- A version where you can insert a letter anywhere in the fragment.
- Anagram versions: you can rearrange letters as well as add one.
- Spook: you work with a pool of letters with no fixed order.
- Cheddar Gorge: you add to a sentence fragment instead of a word fragment.

These variants usually take longer to play and are less common.

Origin and name: “Ghost” comes from “three thirds of a ghost,” a way to describe the losing players fading away.

In theory, some forms of Ghost can be analyzed to find winning strategies, especially when the language of possible words is known. Researchers and puzzle fans have published sample strategies based on dictionaries. Some variants are described as very hard to solve in general.

There’s also a German version where words form more freely by joining letters, and that variant is also considered very hard to solve in theory. Ghost is a quick, fun game that tests vocabulary and strategy, playable with just your voice or with paper.