The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.

POLECATS

8 letters

Definition of POLECATS

noun

plural of polecat

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

Word DNA

POLECATS inherits its ancestry from its root, POLECAT.

Line of descent

  1. Old French
  2. Middle English
  3. English

2 recorded generations before English.

Old French

Deepest traced root

9th

of 58 source languages in OUTLIER

2.9%

of traced words share this origin (842)

Romance

branch · 15.4% of traced words

How it is built

nouncompound

Same root, POLECAT · 1 relative in the game

Every Old French word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →

Rarity score
Withheld
Revealed only in play
Tier
Withheld
Find it yourself

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 34 boards so far. 67 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 149
Its 34 boards, across 149 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
34
Boards found on
27
First board
149
Latest board
21
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 27, 16 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 149, 16 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.

First ever to find it

jhhillman

on Day 27, 16 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers

Built from these letters

POLECATS
8
Letters
3
Vowels
5
Consonants
8
Different letters
2
Longest consonant run
1
Longest vowel run

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.

Words that start POLECA

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

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