The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
DUNCE
Definition of DUNCE
noun
An unintelligent person.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
1530, named after John Duns Scotus (c. 1266–1308). Scotus was ironically a well-known Scottish thinker; his followers, however, opposed the philosophers of the Renaissance, and thus "dunce" was first used to describe someone rejecting new knowledge in 1530; later, any person deemed stupid.
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.
DUNCE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 41 boards so far. 182 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 1, 22 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 101, 29 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
DUNCE starts with D and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read CDENU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start DUNCE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 1
Could you have found DUNCE?
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 1 - and most players walked straight past it.
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