The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PATCHES
Definition of PATCHES
noun
plural 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
Word DNA
PATCHES inherits its ancestry from its root, PATCH.
Line of descent
6 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
9th
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
2.9%
of traced words share this origin (837)
branch · 15.4% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, PATCH · 4 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Old Occitan.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
PATCHES in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 13 boards so far. 20 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 19, 8 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 125, 22 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 21 days.
First found by a player on Day 19, 8 June 2026.
Built from these letters
PATCHES starts with P and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read ACEHPST - 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 PATCHE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found PATCHES?
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 19 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER