The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PHONEMES
Definition of PHONEMES
noun
plural 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
Word DNA
PHONEMES inherits its ancestry from its root, PHONEME.
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 (3,660)
branch · 12.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, PHONEME · 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.
PHONEMES in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 53 boards so far. 309 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 26, 15 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 144, 11 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First ever to find it
on Day 26, 15 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
PHONEMES starts with P and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read EEHMNOPS - 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 26
Could you have found PHONEMES?
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 26 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER