The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
BODGE
Definition of BODGE
verb
To do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary repair; mend, patch up, repair.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Inherited from Middle English bocchen (“to mend, patch up, repair”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Middle Dutch botsen, butsen, boetsen (“to repair, patch”) (Dutch botsen (“to strike, beat, knock together”)), related to Old High German bōzan (“to beat”), See beat; or perhaps from Old English bōtettan (“to improve, repair”), Old English bōtian (“to get better”). Compare botch. More at boot. Perhaps from boggle. Perhaps from botch (“patch, or a measurement of capacity equivalent to half a peck”). There is a hypothesis that bodges, defined as rough sacks of corn, closely resembled packages of finished goods the bodgers carried when they left the forest or workshop. Another hypothesis (dating from 1879) is that bodger was a corruption of badger, as similarly to the behaviour of a badger, the bodger dwelt in the woods and seldom emerged until evenings. Other hypotheses include German Böttcher (“cooper (profession)”), a trade that uses similar tools), and similar Scandinavian words, such the Danish bødker. These words have similar origins to butt, as in water butt (“rain barrel”). Or possibly it may have been a derogatory term used by workers in furniture factories, referring to the men who worked in the woods that produced the “incomplete” chair parts. The factory workers would then take the output of that "bodged job" and turn it into a finished product. The Oxford English Dictionary Supplement of 1972 has two definitions for bodger. One is a local dialect word from Buckinghamshire, for a chair leg turner. The other is Australian slang for bad workmanship. The etymology of the bodger and botcher (poor workmanship) are well recorded from Shakespeare onwards, and now the two terms are synonymous.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
BODGE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 11 boards so far. 20 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 11, 31 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 100, 28 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.
First found by a player on Day 11, 31 May 2026.
Built from these letters
BODGE starts with B and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read BDEGO - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start BODGE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 11
Could you have found BODGE?
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 11 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER