The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
MERLON
Definition of MERLON
noun
Any of the upright projections between the embrasures of a battlement, originally for archers to shield behind while shooting arrows over the embrasures, or through loopholes in the merlons.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Borrowed from French merlon, from Italian merlone (“merlon”), from merlo (“merlon”) + -one (suffix forming augmentatives). Merlo is derived from Late Latin merulus, merlus, possibly from Latin merula (“blackbird”) (as merlons resemble a row of birds perched on a wall), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ems- (“black; blackbird”). The English word is cognate with Italian mergolo (“battlement; pinnacle”), Portuguese merlão, Spanish merlón (“merlon”).
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.
MERLON in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 9 boards so far.
It first turned up on Day 72, 31 July 2026. The most recent board was Day 117, 14 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 3 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 73, 1 August 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
MERLON starts with M and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read ELMNOR - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Could you have found MERLON?
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 72 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER