The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
ATHAME
Definition of ATHAME
noun
A ceremonial pointed knife or dagger, used especially in Wicca and other neopagan traditions and typically having a black handle with magical symbols on it.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From French athamé in a 1929 passage from É.-J. Grillot de Givry (see 1931 citation below), apparently from Medieval Latin artavus (“quill-sharpening knife”). Artavus was also mistranslated into artauo in an Italian manuscript. The arthame was conflated with the cortel nero (“black knife”) by Grillot de Givry, and that conflation was passed on to Gerald Gardner (whose 1954 book Witchcraft Today introduced Wicca to the public).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
10th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
1.7%
of traced words share this origin (1,294)
branch · 12.9% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, ATHAME · 1 relative in the game
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
ATHAME in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 21 boards so far. 27 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 35, 24 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 144, 11 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 12 days.
First found by a player on Day 35, 24 June 2026.
Built from these letters
ATHAME starts with A and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read AAEHMT - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. A appears more than once.
Same letters, different word
One other word uses exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Also seen on Day 35
Could you have found ATHAME?
OUTLIER is a daily word game. One grid, the same grid for everybody, and the words nobody else spots are the ones that pay. This word was on Day 35 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER