Charades: Rules, Hand Signals and a Short History
Charades is the party game where one player acts out a word or title without speaking and everyone else shouts guesses. It needs no board, no cards and no screen, works for any age, and gets louder and funnier the longer it goes. Here are the rules, the classic hand signals, word ideas for every level, and the surprisingly literary history of the game.
The Rules in One Minute
- Split into two teams. A coin flip decides who goes first.
- One player from the starting team gets a secret word, phrase or title (written by the other team, or picked at random).
- They have a set time, usually one to three minutes, to get their own team to say it exactly. No talking, no mouthing words, no pointing at objects that spell the answer.
- If the team guesses in time, they score a point. Then it is the other team's turn with a new actor.
- Play an agreed number of rounds, or until everyone has acted at least once. Most points wins.
For a relaxed game with small children, skip the teams and the timer: whoever guesses first acts next.
The Classic Hand Signals
These signs are not official rules, but most groups use them and they save a lot of frantic waving. Agree on them before you start.
Category signs
- Film: crank an old-fashioned movie camera beside your head.
- Book: hold your palms together, then open them like a book.
- Song: pretend to sing, with a hand moving out from your mouth.
- TV show: draw a rectangle in the air for the screen.
- Play: pull an imaginary curtain cord.
- Phrase or quote: make air quotes with two fingers on each hand.
Word and syllable signs
- Number of words: hold up that many fingers.
- Which word you are acting: hold up fingers again, for example two fingers for the second word.
- Number of syllables: lay that many fingers on your forearm.
- Sounds like: tug your earlobe, then act a word that rhymes.
- Small word (a, the, of): hold your thumb and finger close together.
- Longer or shorter: stretch your hands apart or push them together, to ask for a longer or shorter form of the guess.
- Correct: tap your nose and point at the person who said it.
Word Ideas by Level
Easy (young children)
Cat, elephant, swimming, brushing teeth, rain, birthday cake, football, sleeping, a snowman, a monkey, flying a kite, eating spaghetti.
Medium (older kids and families)
Riding a rollercoaster, a traffic jam, making a pizza, walking a dog that pulls too hard, a superhero, camping, a haunted house, learning to ride a bike.
Hard (teens and adults)
Famous film, book and song titles that your group knows, proverbs such as "the early bird catches the worm", jobs such as an air traffic controller, and abstract words such as jealousy or nostalgia.
Picking Words and Players at Random
Two things slow a charades night down: arguing over whose turn it is and running out of ideas. A random picker fixes both.
- Who acts next: put everyone's name in the Random Name Picker and spin. Press Remove after each pick, so nobody acts twice before everyone has had a go.
- What to act: type a list of words into the Picker Wheel and let the wheel choose. Turn the screen away from the guessers before you spin.
- Which category: put Film, Book, Song, TV and Animal on the wheel for a quick mixed round.
The same trick works for other kids party games and classroom games with a random picker.
A Short History of Charades
The word came into English from French in the 18th century. Its origin is uncertain; one suggestion is the Provençal charrado, a chat or conversation.
The first charades were not acted at all. They were riddles in words or verse: each syllable of the answer was described in a cryptic line, then the whole word. Jane Austen uses one in Emma (1815), where Mr Elton writes a charade whose answer is "courtship", from "court" and "ship".
By the 19th century, acting charades out had become a popular country-house entertainment, usually with dialogue, costumes and little scenes, one for each syllable and a final one for the whole word. In Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), Mr Rochester and his guests act out the word "Bridewell". William Makepeace Thackeray named a chapter of Vanity Fair (1847 to 1848) "In Which a Charade Is Acted Which May or May Not Puzzle the Reader".
The silent version with hand signals that most people play today came later, and television game shows built on it, such as Britain's Give Us a Clue, made it a household game.
Tips for Better Rounds
- Act the big, obvious part first. For "Harry Potter", a wand and glasses beat the word "Harry".
- Use "sounds like" when a word is impossible to act. "Knight" is hard, "night" is easy.
- Guessers: shout everything. Wrong guesses show the actor what is and is not working.
- Keep a generous timer for young players and a strict one for adults.
FAQ
What are the basic rules of charades?
Players take turns acting out a secret word, phrase or title without speaking, while their team tries to guess it within a time limit. A correct guess scores a point, and the team with the most points wins.
What is the hand signal for "sounds like" in charades?
Tug your earlobe, then act out a word that rhymes with or sounds like the word you need.
How do you show the number of words in charades?
Hold up one finger for each word in the answer. Then hold up fingers again to show which word you are acting.
Can you talk or mouth words in charades?
No. The actor may not speak, mouth words or spell anything out. Only gestures, mime and the agreed hand signals are allowed.
Where does the word charade come from?
It came into English from French in the 18th century. Its origin is uncertain, and one suggestion is the Provençal word charrado, meaning a chat. Early charades were word riddles, not acted games.