The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
CRYPTOZOA
Definition of CRYPTOZOA
noun
Small animals who live in darkness and under conditions of high relative humidity.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From crypto- + zoa, coined by English zoologist Arthur Dendy.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
How it is built
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
CRYPTOZOA in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 1 board so far.
It first turned up on Day 160, 27 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 7 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 160, 27 October 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
CRYPTOZOA starts with C and ends with A. Sorted, its letters read ACOOPRTYZ - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. O appears more than once. It uses Z - among the least common letters in written English.
Words that start CRYPTO
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found CRYPTOZOA?
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 160 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER