The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PLAQUE
Definition of PLAQUE
noun
Any flat, thin piece of clay, ivory, metal, etc., used for ornament, or for painting pictures upon, as a dish, plate, slab, etc., hung upon a wall; also, a smaller decoration worn by a person, such as a brooch.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Unadapted borrowing from French plaque (“plate, sheet (of metal); slab (of marble); bacteria on teeth”), from French plaquer, Middle French plaquer (“to plate”), from Middle Dutch placken (“to patch, beat metal into a thin plate”), from placke (“disk, patch, stain”), from Old Dutch *plagga (“patch”), from Proto-Germanic *plaggą (“patch”). The word is cognate with Middle Low German placke, plagge (“small stain, scraps, rags, thin grass”), German Placken (“spot, patch”), Saterland Frisian plak, plakke (“a blow, slap”), Swedish plagg (“clothing, garment”). Compare plack.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
6th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
4.7%
of traced words share this origin (3,718)
branch · 22.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, PLAQUE · 2 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Middle Low German, Swedish.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
PLAQUE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 13 boards so far. 56 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 10, 30 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 150, 17 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 9 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 10, 30 May 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
PLAQUE starts with P and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read AELPQU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram. It uses Q - among the least common letters in written English.
Words that start PLAQUE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 10
Could you have found PLAQUE?
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 10 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER