The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PHONEME
Definition of PHONEME
noun
An indivisible unit of sound in a given language. A phoneme is an abstraction of the physical speech sounds (phones) and may encompass several different phones.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Ancient Greek φώνημα (phṓnēma, “sound”), from φωνέω (phōnéō, “to sound”), from φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound”). By surface analysis, phone (“speech sound”) + -eme (“unit”).
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.
PHONEME in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 39 boards so far. 445 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 31, 20 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 98, 26 August 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 31, 20 June 2026.
Built from these letters
PHONEME starts with P and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read EEHMNOP - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. E appears more than once.
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 PHONEM
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 31
Could you have found PHONEME?
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 31 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER