The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.

BARDES

/bɑːd/6 letters

Definition of BARDES

Wiktionary has no entry for BARDES itself. This is its base word, BARD.

noun

A professional poet and singer, like among the ancient Celts, whose occupation was to compose and sing verses in honor of the heroic achievements of princes and brave men.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Where it comes from

The origin recorded for BARD.

First use appears c. 1449. From Scottish Gaelic bàrd, from Old Irish bard, from Proto-Celtic *bardos (“bard, poet”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷerH- (“praise”), and reinforced by Latin bardus, borrowed from Celtic. Cognate with Latin grātus (“grateful, pleasant, delightful”), Sanskrit गृणाति (gṛṇāti, “calls, praises”), Old Church Slavonic жрьти (žrĭti, “to sacrifice”).

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

Word DNA

Line of descent

  1. Latin
  2. Proto-Indo-European
  3. Irish
  4. Scottish Gaelic
  5. English

4 recorded generations before English.

Latin

Deepest traced root

1st

of 59 source languages in OUTLIER

30.7%

of traced words share this origin (23,951)

Italic

branch · 30.7% of traced words

How it is built

noun1 syllable

Same root, BARD · 15 relatives in the game

Its etymology also names Sanskrit.

Every Latin word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →

Rarity score
Withheld
Revealed only in play
Tier
Withheld
Find it yourself

OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.

BARDES in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 5 boards so far.

Day 1Day 156
Its 5 boards, across 156 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
5
Boards found on
72
First board
115
Latest board
22
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 72, 31 July 2026. The most recent board was Day 115, 12 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 41 days.

First ever to find it

fartz

on Day 82, 10 August 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers

Built from these letters

BARDES
6
Letters
2
Vowels
4
Consonants
6
Different letters
2
Longest consonant run
1
Longest vowel run

BARDES starts with B and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read ABDERS - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.

Same letters, different word

6 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.

Could you have found BARDES?

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 72 - and most players walked straight past it.

Play today's OUTLIER