The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
FERN
Definition of FERN
noun
Any of a group of some twenty thousand species of vascular plants classified in the division Pteridophyta that lack seeds and reproduce by shedding spores to initiate an alternation of generations.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English fern, from Old English fearn, from Proto-West Germanic *farn, from Proto-Germanic *farnaz (“fern”), from Proto-Indo-European *pornóm (“feather, wing; fern, leaf”), from *p(t)erH- (“fern”). Cognate with Scots fairn (“fern”), North Frisian farne (“fern”), West Frisian fear (“fern”), Dutch varen (“fern”), German Farn, Farm (“fern”), Luxembourgish Far (“fern”); also Breton raden (“fern”), Cornish reden (“ferns; brackens”), Welsh rhedyn (“ferns; brackens”), Latvian paparde (“fern; bracken”), spārns (“wing”), Lithuanian spar̃nas (“wing”), Bulgarian and Macedonian папрат (paprat, “fern”), Czech kapraď (“fern”), Polish paproć (“fern”), Russian па́пороть (páporotʹ), па́поротник (páporotnik, “fern”), Serbo-Croatian па̏пра̄т, pȁprāt (“fern”), Slovak papraď (“fern”), Slovene praprot (“fern”), Ukrainian па́пороть (páporotʹ, “fern”), Central Kurdish پەڕ (perr, “feather”), Persian پر (par, “feather; wing; leaf”), Ashkun pār (“leaf”), Kamkata-viri por, přor (“leaf”), Prasuni parëg (“leaf”), Sanskrit पर्ण (parṇá, “wing; leaf”).
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.
FERN in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 15 boards so far. 32 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 28, 17 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 117, 14 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 4 days.
First found by a player on Day 28, 17 June 2026.
Built from these letters
FERN starts with F and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read EFNR - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start FERN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 28
Could you have found FERN?
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 28 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER