The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
DROVE
Definition of DROVE
noun
A cattle drive, or a drive of another livestock animal (e.g. sheep). The herd being driven in a cattle (or other animal) drive; thus, a number of animals driven to market or new pastures; a group of livestock animals more generally.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English drove, drof, draf, from Old English drāf (“action of driving; a driving out, expulsion; drove, herd, band; company, band; road along which cattle are driven”), from Proto-Germanic *draibō (“a drive, push, movement, drove”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”). Cognate with Scots drave, dreef (“drove, crowd”), Dutch dreef (“a walkway, wide road with trees, drove”), Middle High German treip (“a drove”), Swedish drev (“a drive, drove”), Icelandic dreif (“a scattering, distribution”). More at drive.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.4%
of traced words share this origin (11,201)
How it is built
Same root, DROVE · 5 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Dutch, Icelandic, Scots, 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.
DROVE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 18 boards so far. 22 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 41, 30 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 132, 29 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 25 days.
First found by a player on Day 41, 30 June 2026.
Built from these letters
DROVE starts with D and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read DEORV - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start DROVE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 41
Could you have found DROVE?
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 41 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER