The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PHATIC
Definition of PHATIC
adjective
Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship and whose meaning is otherwise either deemphasized or absent.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
PHATIC carries 2 further meanings.
adjective
Of or relating to communication used to perform a social function rather than to convey information or ideas.
adjective
Pertaining to words used to convey any kind of social relationship e.g polite mood, rather than meaning; for example, "How are you?" is often not a literal question but is said only as a greeting. (Similarly, a response such as "Fine" is often not an accurate answer, but merely an acknowledgement of the greeting.)
Where it comes from
From Ancient Greek φατός (phatós, “spoken”) - from φημί (phēmí, “I say”) - + -ic. Probably formally influenced by emphatic, which predates this term.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
- Ancient Greek
- English
One recorded step before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
12.6%
of traced words share this origin (3,672)
branch · 12.6% of traced words
How it is built
PHATIC in a sentence
“Weed was the reason girls selected clothes based on fuzziness, the reason boys sounded dumb, the reason we inflected every sentence as a question and usedlike andyou know as phatic communications.”
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
PHATIC in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 44 boards so far. 142 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 45, 4 July 2026. The most recent board was Day 144, 11 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 45, 4 July 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
PHATIC starts with P and ends with C. Sorted, its letters read ACHIPT - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start PHATIC
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 45
Could you have found PHATIC?
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 45 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER