The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PATCH
Definition of PATCH
noun
A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a hole.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English patche, of uncertain origin. Perhaps an alteration of earlier Middle English placche (“patch, spot, piece of cloth”), from Old English *plæċċ, *pleċċ (“a spot, mark, patch”), from Proto-West Germanic *plakkju, from Proto-Germanic *plakjō (“spot, stain”). For the loss of l compare pat from Middle English platten. Germanic cognates would then include Middle English plecke, dialectal English pleck (“plot of ground, patch”), West Frisian plak (“place, spot”), Low German Plakk, Plakke (“spot, piece, patch”), Dutch plek (“spot, place, stain, patch”), Dutch plak (“piece, slab”), Swedish plagg (“garment”), Faroese plagg (“cloth, rag”). Or, possibly a variant of Old French pieche, dialectal variant of piece (“piece”). Compare also Old Occitan petaç (“patch”).
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.
PATCH in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 10 boards so far. 15 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 17, 6 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 111, 8 September 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 17, 6 June 2026.
Built from these letters
PATCH starts with P and ends with H. Sorted, its letters read ACHPT - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
One other word uses exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start PATCH
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 17
Could you have found PATCH?
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 17 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER