The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
DRONES
Definition of DRONES
noun
plural 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
Word DNA
DRONES inherits its ancestry from its root, DRONE.
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,506)
How it is built
Same root, DRONE · 9 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Czech, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Swedish.
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
DRONES in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 23 boards so far. 32 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 39, 28 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 160, 27 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 41, 30 June 2026.
Built from these letters
DRONES starts with D and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read DENORS - 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.
Also seen on Day 39
Could you have found DRONES?
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 39 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER