The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
IDEOPHONE
Definition of IDEOPHONE
noun
A word that uses sound symbolism to express aspects of events that can be experienced by the senses, like smell, color, shape, sound, action, or movement.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From ideo- + -phone. James F. Fordyce (The Ideophone as a Phonosemantic Class: The Case of Yoruba, in Current approaches to African linguistics, Ivan R. Dihoff (ed.), page 263) credits C. M. Doke with introducing the term in 1935.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
How it is built
Same root, IDEOPHONE · 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.
IDEOPHONE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 15 boards so far. 15 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 27, 16 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 147, 14 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 21 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 27, 16 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
IDEOPHONE starts with I and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read DEEHINOOP - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. E and O appear more than once.
Words that start IDEOPH
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found IDEOPHONE?
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 27 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER