The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PLOY
Definition of PLOY
noun
A tactic, strategy, or scheme.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Possibly from a shortened form of employ or deploy. Or from earlier ploye, from Middle English, borrowed from Middle French ployer (compare modern plier), from Latin plicāre.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
1st
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
30.7%
of traced words share this origin (26,450)
branch · 30.7% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, PLOY · 3 relatives 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.
PLOY in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 52 boards so far. 145 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 24, 13 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 174, 10 November 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 4 days.
First found by a player on Day 24, 13 June 2026.
Built from these letters
PLOY starts with P and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read LOPY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
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 PLOY
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 24
Could you have found PLOY?
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 24 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER