The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
DORMOUSE
Definition of DORMOUSE
noun
Any of several species of small, mostly European rodents of the family Gliridae. Glis glis (edible dormouse). Muscardinus avellanarius (hazel dormouse).
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English dormowse, of uncertain origin. Possibly from a dialectal *dor-, from Old Norse dár (“benumbed”) + mous (“mouse”). More at doze, mouse. The word is sometimes conjectured to come from an Anglo-Norman derivative of Old French dormir (“to sleep”) (as *dormouse (“tending to be dormant”), with second element mistaken for mouse), but no such Anglo-Norman term is known to have existed.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
9th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
2.9%
of traced words share this origin (854)
branch · 15.4% of traced words
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.
DORMOUSE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 32 boards so far. 96 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 43, 2 July 2026. The most recent board was Day 152, 19 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First ever to find it
on Day 43, 2 July 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
DORMOUSE starts with D and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read DEMOORSU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. O appears more than once.
Also seen on Day 43
Could you have found DORMOUSE?
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 43 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER