The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
HOODLUM
Definition of HOODLUM
noun
A gangster; a hired thug.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
First attested in a December 1866 Daily Alta California article, which mentions "the 'Hoodlum Gang' of juvenile thieves". Several possible origins have been proposed. It may derive from a Germanic word like Swabian hudelum (“disorderly”) or Bavarian Haderlump (“ragamuffin”). Herbert Asbury's book The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld (1933, A. A. Knopf, New York) says the word originated in San Francisco from a particular street gang's call to unemployed Irishmen to "huddle 'em" (to beat up Chinese migrants), after which San Francisco newspapers took to calling street gangs "hoodlums".
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.
HOODLUM in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 18 boards so far. 41 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 9, 29 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 110, 7 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 9, 29 May 2026.
Built from these letters
HOODLUM starts with H and ends with M. Sorted, its letters read DHLMOOU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. O appears more than once, including a double letter.
Words that start HOODLU
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 9
Could you have found HOODLUM?
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 9 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER