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How to Draw the Words You Can’t Picture: Abstract Ideas, Verbs and Tricky Words
“Freedom.” “Jealousy.” “Running.” The hardest words to draw have no obvious picture — here’s how to crack them anyway.
Every drawing game eventually hands you a word with no picture attached. “Freedom.” “Jealousy.” “Patience.” You stare at the blank canvas and your mind goes just as blank. The trick is to stop looking for the one perfect image — abstract words don’t have one — and instead draw your way around them. With a few reliable strategies, even the most undrawable word becomes a puzzle you can solve in your 60 seconds.
▶ Play free in your browserDraw a scene, not a thing
Abstract ideas live in situations, not objects. You can’t draw “freedom”, but you can draw a bird flying out of an open cage — and your team gets there in seconds. “Holiday” isn’t an object either, but a beach with a sun and a palm tree tells the whole story. When a word has nothing to point at, build the scene that the word lives inside and let your team read the mood.
Strategies for the un-drawable
Use a universal symbol
Some abstract ideas already have a picture everyone shares: a heart for love, a lightbulb for an idea, a halo for good, devil horns for bad. Reach for the symbol your whole group will recognise instantly.
Show cause, then effect
For “jealousy”, draw one person with a big ice cream and a second person glaring with a green face. For “luck”, a four-leaf clover and a happy face. Pair the trigger with the reaction.
Draw the opposite and cross it out
Stuck on “silence”? Draw a mouth talking, then a big cross through it. Negation is a fast way to point at a word that has no positive image of its own.
Put a face on the feeling
Emotions read brilliantly on a simple face. Down-turned mouth and a tear for “sadness”, gritted teeth and steam for “anger”, wide eyes for “surprise”. Exaggerate it hard.
Show motion for verbs
Action words are tricky because a still drawing has no movement. Draw the figure mid-action and add motion lines — flailing arms and droplets for “swimming”, a blur and speed lines for “running”.
Build from what they know
Get your team to guess a near-miss first — draw something concrete and related, let them say it out loud, then tweak the drawing to nudge them from the known word to the one you need.
Tackling action words
Verbs feel impossible because you’re drawing a moment, not an object. The fix is to commit to the action and exaggerate it. Don’t draw a person who happens to be near water and hope your team infers “swimming” — draw arms mid-stroke, a splash, ripples and motion lines until the movement is unmistakable. The same goes for “sneezing” (a big AHH-CHOO burst), “juggling” (three balls in an arc) or “climbing” (a figure spread on a steep rock face). Movement lines are your best friend; use them liberally.
- Abstract nouns → draw the scene or situation the idea lives in.
- Emotions → put an exaggerated face on it, with classic cues like tears, steam or wide eyes.
- Verbs → freeze the figure mid-action and add motion lines and effects.
- Concepts with a known symbol → just use the symbol; don’t overthink it.
- Truly stuck → draw a related word, get it guessed, then transform the drawing toward the target.
Practice on real player words
These are exactly the words the Draw It round in World’s Greatest Game loves to throw at you. Because every word is written by the players, you’ll get plenty of concrete easy ones — and the odd “democracy” or “nostalgia” that separates a good drawer from a quick thinker. For the fast, concrete words, our guide to sketching words fast covers the speed techniques; and if you’re worried your art isn’t up to it, you really don’t need to be able to draw to pull these off.
Frequently asked questions
How do you draw an abstract word like freedom?
Draw the scene the idea lives in rather than searching for one object. For “freedom”, a bird flying out of an open cage reads in seconds. For abstract words generally, use a universal symbol, show a cause and its effect, or draw the opposite and cross it out.
How do you draw an action word or verb?
Freeze a figure in the middle of the action and exaggerate the movement with motion lines and effects — splashes for swimming, speed lines for running, a burst for sneezing. The movement cues matter more than the figure itself.
What do you do when you can’t think of anything to draw?
Draw something concrete and related to the target word, get your team to guess it out loud, then adjust the drawing to nudge them from that known word toward the one you actually need. Building from a near-miss is faster than freezing on the perfect image.