The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PELF
Definition of PELF
noun
Money, riches; gain, especially when dishonestly acquired; lucre, mammon.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
PELF carries 4 further meanings.
noun
Wealth or riches, especially when dishonestly acquired.
noun
Frippery; rubbish; refuse; trash.
noun
Money; riches; “filtby lucre”: a contemptuous term. It has no plural.
noun
Money; riches; lucre; gain; -- generally conveying the idea of something ill-gotten or worthless. It has no plural.
Where it comes from
From Late Middle English pelf, pelfe (“stolen goods, booty, spoil; forfeited property; money, riches; property; valuable object”), possibly from Anglo-Norman pelf (a variant of pelfre (“booty, loot”)) and Old French peufre (“frippery; rubbish”); further etymology uncertain, possibly a metathesis of Old French felpe, ferpe, frepe (“a rag”). The English word is perhaps related to Late Latin pelfa, pelfra, pelfrum (“forfeited or stolen goods”), Middle French peuffe and French peufe, peuffe (“old clothes; rubbish”) (Normandy), and pilfer.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
5 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
13th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
1.1%
of traced words share this origin (828)
branch · 12.8% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, PELF · 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.
PELF in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 55 boards so far. 93 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 28, 17 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 159, 26 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First ever to find it
on Day 28, 17 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
PELF starts with P and ends with F. Sorted, its letters read EFLP - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that mean much the same
Near-synonyms of PELF. Not interchangeable at the board - the grid decides that - but close in meaning.
Also seen on Day 28
Could you have found PELF?
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 28 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER