The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
POLECATS
Definition of POLECATS
noun
plural of polecat
noun
Any of several long-bodied mammals of the subfamilies Mustelinae and Ictonychinae, both in the weasel family Mustelidae. Notably, the European polecat, Mustela putorius.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Another sense
POLECATS carries a second meaning.
noun
Plural form of polecat.
Word DNA
POLECATS inherits its ancestry from its root, POLECAT.
Line of descent
- Old French
- Middle English
- English
2 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
9th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
2.9%
of traced words share this origin (2,314)
branch · 12.8% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, POLECAT · 1 relative in the game
POLECATS in a sentence
“Skunks are sometimes referred to as polecats, but polecats are Old World weasels or ferrets.”
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
POLECATS in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 39 boards so far. 77 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 27, 16 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 160, 27 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First ever to find it
on Day 27, 16 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
POLECATS starts with P and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read ACELOPST - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Also seen on Day 27
Could you have found POLECATS?
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 27 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER