How to Play Taboo Letters

By Jaques of London · Est. 1795 · Updated 2026-08-17

Taboo Letters is a spoken word parlour game in which one letter is declared forbidden for a round, and every player must then speak, answer questions, or tell a story without uttering a single word that contains that letter. It sounds straightforward until the pressure mounts and the obvious words are the very ones you must avoid.

People love it because it requires no equipment beyond an agreed letter, scales from gentle family play to fiercely competitive adult rounds, and produces genuine laughter when even the most careful speaker trips up. It is at home around a dinner table, on a long car journey, or as an icebreaker at a party.

A little history

The precise origins of Taboo Letters are unclear. Avoiding a particular letter in speech or writing is a device with a long history in rhetoric and wordplay, and letter-avoidance word games appear in Victorian and Edwardian parlour game collections, where they were popular as drawing-room entertainments requiring no apparatus. The spoken competitive form documented here has been played traditionally in British households, though no single inventor or definitive first publication has been firmly established.

Setting up

1. Seat all players so they can see and hear one another clearly.
2. Choose a question-master for the first round, or decide that all players will take the role in rotation.
3. Agree on the scoring or elimination method before play begins (see Winning).
4. Agree on a time limit per turn if using one; 60 seconds is the standard.
5. The question-master (or the group by vote) selects the taboo letter for the round and announces it clearly. Common starting letters are S, T, or E, as they appear frequently in English.

How to play

1. The question-master announces the taboo letter loudly and clearly so every player hears it.
2. The question-master then addresses any player with a direct question or a topic prompt, for example: 'Tell me three things you did yesterday' or 'What is your favourite season?'
3. The addressed player must respond immediately and speak for as long as required, using no word that contains the taboo letter anywhere within it, including plurals, verb endings, and contractions.
4. Any other player may challenge at any moment if they believe the speaking player has used a forbidden word. Play pauses for the group to rule on the challenge.
5. If the challenge is upheld, the speaking player receives a penalty point or is eliminated, depending on the agreed format. If the challenge is wrong, the challenger receives a penalty point instead.
6. The question-master continues around the table, putting questions to each player in turn. The question-master is also subject to the same taboo rule when speaking.
7. When every player has been questioned once, the round ends. A new taboo letter is chosen for the next round, and the role of question-master passes to the left.
8. Hesitating for more than a few seconds (typically three, agreed before play) counts as a slip and carries the same penalty as using a forbidden word.
9. Players who are eliminated in an elimination format watch the remainder of the round. Play continues until one player remains, or until all rounds are complete in the points format.

Winning and scoring

In the points format, each player starts with zero penalty points. Every slip (forbidden word used, or hesitation beyond the agreed limit) adds one point to that player's total. At the end of an agreed number of rounds, typically three to five, the player with the fewest penalty points wins. In the elimination format, a player is out the moment they make a slip, and the last remaining player wins the round. Winning a round scores one point, and the first player to win three rounds wins the game overall.

The fine points

The most common dispute is whether a word genuinely contains the taboo letter. The ruling is phonetic and literal: if the letter appears in the standard spelling of the word, it is forbidden, regardless of how it is pronounced. For example, if the taboo letter is C, then 'science' is forbidden even though the C is silent. Players may not substitute unusual spellings to dodge the rule. If a challenge is raised mid-sentence, the speaker must stop immediately; they may not continue and then argue the word was allowable.

A second recurring dispute concerns proper nouns: names of people and places are generally permitted in traditional play, since limiting them adds excessive difficulty. However, if the group wishes to ban proper nouns as well, that must be agreed before the round starts. Exclamations and filler sounds such as 'um' or 'er' are not words and carry no penalty, but 'okay' or 'right' are words and are subject to the taboo rule. When players disagree on a ruling, a quick majority vote by non-involved players is the cleanest resolution.

How to win more often

• Before your turn, mentally rehearse synonyms for the most common words that contain the taboo letter. Preparation in the gaps between your turns is legal and valuable.
• Slow your speaking pace slightly. Rushing increases the chance of a habitual word slipping out before you have checked it.
• Listen carefully to the questions put to other players. The question-master often reuses topic areas, and you can silently rehearse safe vocabulary while others speak.
• When answering, steer your response toward concrete, simple words rather than abstract language. Abstract vocabulary tends to rely on common letter combinations that are harder to avoid.
• If you are the question-master, direct your hardest questions at the strongest players and give yourself simpler prompts. The question-master controls the difficulty of their own turn.

Variations

Double Taboo

Two letters are declared forbidden for the round instead of one. This sharply increases difficulty and works best with experienced players. Scoring and elimination rules remain identical; the round simply becomes harder to survive without a penalty.

Rolling Taboo

At the start of each player's turn, a new taboo letter is drawn at random from a bag of lettered tokens or announced by the player to the left. The taboo therefore changes every turn rather than every round, keeping all players alert throughout and preventing anyone from rehearsing too heavily.

Story Chain

Instead of a question-and-answer format, players collaboratively build a single continuous story. The first player speaks one or two sentences, then points to any other player who must continue the story without using the taboo letter. The story-building structure adds creative pressure on top of the letter avoidance.

Common Letter Challenge

For a harder game aimed at older players, the taboo letter is chosen specifically because it is one of the five most frequent letters in English, typically E, T, A, O, or I. Avoiding E in natural speech is exceptionally difficult and makes even simple answers a significant challenge.

Taboo Letters: frequently asked questions