The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PHONEMICS
Definition of PHONEMICS
noun
The study of phonemes and their written representations.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
PHONEMICS carries 2 further meanings.
noun
The study and establishment of the phonemes of a language.
noun
the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classification of its phonemes
Where it comes from
From phoneme + -ics.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
How it is built
Same root, PHONEMIC · 1 relative in the game
PHONEMICS in a sentence
“So – the diacritics are a feature of phonetics (not phonemics) and of tension, not lengthening.”
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
PHONEMICS in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 44 boards so far. 82 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 36, 25 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 144, 11 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First ever to find it
on Day 36, 25 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
PHONEMICS starts with P and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read CEHIMNOPS - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start PHONEM
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 36
Could you have found PHONEMICS?
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 36 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER