Living Rarity
Outlier keeps score of how alone you were. Beyond a word’s fixed Rarity Score below, every word carries its living history — how many players have ever found it, across all of Outlier. The words almost nobody has found are the ones worth the most pride, and you cannot memorize your way to a word no one has found yet. That is why Outlier is never finished.
Every rare find shows how many players have ever found that word. The fewer, the rarer the moment.
Find a word no one has ever found and you are its first finder — written onto the board of history.
Your profile tracks how alone your finds are: the words only you have ever found, and the ones you were first to.
See the Pioneers — the players who were first to find each rare word.
Rarity tiers
Every word in OUTLIER has a permanent Rarity Score from 0 to 100. It comes from real English-frequency data. Tiers are absolute bands on the rarity number, and they don’t depend on how many players find the word. The longer the bar, the rarer the find.
Daily ranks
Your title for the day, climbing with the rarity of your best find.
On the board — surveying the day's words.
Score 300+ or a Rarity-16+ find — you spotted what most missed.
Score 500+ or a RARE find — thorough and sharp.
Score 750+ or an EPIC find — top-tier finishing.
A Rarity-85+ word — exceptionally rare.
Two or more OUTLIER finds in one day.
You cleared the day's trophy words.
Encore
Outlier rewards finding new words, not memorizing a list. The first two times you find a given rare word — EPIC or rarer — it pays full. From the third time on, that same word pays a little less each time you re-find it across grids: an Encore. Common and uncommon words are never touched, and finds fade on a 60-day half-life, so a rare word you haven’t used in months counts as fresh again.
full points
×.85
×.70
×.60
×.55
×.50 (floor)
Encore applies to the daily board only. The score you see when you lock a word is final — Encore is set the moment you lock and never changes afterward.
Glossary
Rarity Score
Every word's permanent 0–100 rarity number. It comes from real English-frequency data. Set at the moment you lock the word and never changes. Higher = rarer.
Points
Each find earns points based on how rare the word is. Rarer words pay more. Tier caps: COMMON +50, UNCOMMON +75, RARE +85, EPIC +90, SUPER RARE +95, OUTLIER +100. Max 1,000 per game.
Rank
Your title for the day — driven by your rarest find, not how many words you got.
Trophy words
The day's standout rare words. Land them all and you earn LEGEND.
Best find
The single rarest word you found that day — the one worth bragging about.
Lock in
Finalizing your score. It can't be undone, so you'll be asked to confirm.
Practice
Replaying a past Outlier from the Archive. Never counts toward your score or your Leaderboard rank.
Go deeper
Want to get better at finding the words everyone else walks past? Read Rare Words: A Field Guide to the Ones Worth Knowing. For the format itself, see our guides to the daily word search game and the word grid game.