The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
DUDE
Definition of DUDE
noun
A man, generally a younger man.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Uncertain, though likely a clipping of doodle (“fool, simpleton, mindless person”), perhaps with reference to the fashionable “Yankee Doodle dandy” in the 18th-century lyrics of the song “Yankee Doodle”; the word is first attested in 1883 as a New York City slang term of contempt for a “fastidious man, fop”. If so, then related to German Low German Dudeldop, Dudendop (“fool, dunce”), Saterland Frisian Duddigegen (“idiot”). It has also been suggested that the word is derived from dudes (“old rags”; compare duds) and dudesman (“scarecrow”), or possibly related to dawdle; It has also been suggested the word derives from the Irish dúid. The common claim that the term derives from (or is) a word for a camel's foreskin (or some other vulgar thing, like a hair on a cow, horse, donkey, or elephant's bottom) is false.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
2 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
21st
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
0.5%
of traced words share this origin (135)
branch · 0.8% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, DUDE · 1 relative in the game
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
DUDE in OUTLIER
It has fitted 1 board so far.
It first turned up on Day 76, 4 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 66 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 76, 4 August 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
DUDE starts with D and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read DDEU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. D appears more than once.
Same letters, different word
One other word uses exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start DUDE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found DUDE?
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 76 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER