The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
HONES
Definition of HONES
noun
plural of hone
noun
A sharpening stone composed of extra-fine grit used for removing the burr or curl from the blade of a razor or some other edge tool.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Word DNA
HONES inherits its ancestry from its root, HONE.
Line of descent
6 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
18th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
0.6%
of traced words share this origin (506)
branch · 0.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, HONE · 4 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Dutch, Norwegian.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
HONES in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 17 boards so far. 23 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 39, 28 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 167, 3 November 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 39, 28 June 2026.
Built from these letters
HONES starts with H and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read EHNOS - 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 HONES
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found HONES?
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