How to play
- Split into two teams – or three, or four. Type the team names above.
- The first team picks one player to describe. That player holds the phone and presses Start the turn.
- A word appears on the card, with five words under it. Get your team to say the word without saying any of the five – and without the word itself, of course.
- Your team guessed it: press Correct for a point. Too hard: press Skip for the next card. Said a forbidden word: the other team shouts “Taboo!” and you press Taboo! – a point off.
- When the time is up, the points of the turn go to your team and the phone goes to the next team, with a new player to describe.
The rules that keep it fair
- No “sounds like”, no “rhymes with” and no first letters.
- No parts of the word: for “toothbrush”, “tooth” and “brush” are as forbidden as the five words on the card.
- No gestures and no pointing – only words.
- A player of the other team watches the card over the shoulder of the one describing, ready to shout “Taboo!”.
Tick A skip costs a point for experienced players: skipping then hurts as much as a taboo word, and nobody skips their way through the deck.
Your own cards
Add cards for your class, your family or your office under Your own cards, one per line: the word, a colon, and the words that must not be said – Our teacher: maths, glasses, tall, strict, Mr Brown. They join the cards of this page.
Tips for describing
- Start with the category: “It is an animal…”, “It is something in the kitchen…”.
- Use opposites and examples: “Not hot but…” or “Like a lion, but…”.
- Act the situation out in words: “You use it when it rains and you do not want to get wet”.
- Stuck after ten seconds? Skip. A new card is faster than a lost minute.
For classrooms
Taboo is one of the best vocabulary games there is: to describe a word without its obvious neighbours, students have to reach for other words. Put your vocabulary list in as your own cards, split the class in two, and project the card for the describing student only – or play it in a foreign language lesson.
Nothing to install
It all runs in your browser, on this device: no app, no account, nothing sent anywhere. Your settings and the game in progress are still here after a reload.