The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
BANAL
Definition of BANAL
adjective
Common in a boring way, to the point of being predictable; containing nothing new or fresh.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Borrowed from French banal (“held in common, relating to feudal service, by extension commonplace”), from Old French banel, related to Medieval Latin bannālis (“subject to feudal authority”), from Latin bannus (“jurisdiction”), both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *bannaną (“to order, summon, forbid”). Equivalent to ban + -al. See also ban, abandon.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
7th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
3.3%
of traced words share this origin (994)
branch · 22.3% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, BANAL · 2 relatives 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.
BANAL in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 54 boards so far. 158 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 8, 29 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 151, 18 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 8, 29 May 2026.
Built from these letters
BANAL starts with B and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read AABLN - 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.
Words that start BANAL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 8
Could you have found BANAL?
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 8 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER