The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.

PHAETON

/ˈfeɪ.ɪtən/7 letters

Definition of PHAETON

noun

a light four-wheeled open carriage drawn by four horses

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Where it comes from

Borrowed from French phaéton.

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

Word DNA

Line of descent

  1. French
  2. English

One recorded step before English.

French

Deepest traced root

5th

of 58 source languages in OUTLIER

7.2%

of traced words share this origin (2,062)

Romance

branch · 15.4% of traced words

How it is built

noun3 syllables

Same root, PHAETON · 1 relative in the game

Every French word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →

Rarity score
Withheld
Revealed only in play
Tier
Withheld
Find it yourself

OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.

PHAETON in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 64 boards so far. 318 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 144
Its 64 boards, across 144 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
64
Boards found on
25
First board
144
Latest board
15
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 25, 14 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 144, 11 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.

First ever to find it

maddy

on Day 25, 14 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers

Built from these letters

PHAETON
7
Letters
3
Vowels
4
Consonants
7
Different letters
2
Longest consonant run
2
Longest vowel run

PHAETON starts with P and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read AEHNOPT - 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 PHAETO

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

Could you have found PHAETON?

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 25 - and most players walked straight past it.

Play today's OUTLIER