The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
DRONE
Definition of DRONE
noun
A male hymenopteran (ant, bee, hornet, or wasp), whose sole primary function is to mate with the queen.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English drane, dron, drone, from Old English drān, drǣn, from Proto-West Germanic *drānu, from Proto-Germanic *drenô, *drēnuz (“drone”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreh₁n- (“bee, drone, hornet”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Droane (“drone”), Dutch dar (“drone”), German Drohne (“drone”), Limburgish dreen, Droon (“drone”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk drone (“drone”), Swedish drönare (“drone”); also Belarusian тру́цень (trúcjenʹ, “drone”), Bulgarian търтей (tărtej, “drone”), Czech trubec (“drone”), Macedonian трут (trut, “drone”), Polish trąd, trut, truteń (“drone”), Russian and Ukrainian тру́тень (trútenʹ, “drone”), Serbo-Croatian тру̑т, trȗt (“drone”), Slovak trúd (“drone”), Slovene trot (“drone”). The etymology of the sense of "remote-controlled aircraft" is disputed; theories include early military UAVs dumbly flying on preset paths.
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.
DRONE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 22 boards so far. 34 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 2, 23 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 101, 29 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First ever to find it
on Day 23, 12 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
DRONE starts with D and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read DENOR - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
3 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start DRONE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 2
Could you have found DRONE?
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 2 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER