The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PUNY
Definition of PUNY
adjective
Of inferior significance, size, or strength; ineffective, small, weak.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
A respelling of puisne, from Anglo-Norman puisné (“later, more recent; junior; weakly”) [and other forms] and Middle French puisné (“born after (a specified person); younger, youngest; one who is born after (a specified person)”) (modern French puîné (“cadet (born after a sibling); a cadet (someone born after a sibling)”)), from puis (“after; since”) + né (“born”). Puis is derived from Old French pois (“after; since”), from Vulgar Latin *postius (“afterward”), from Latin posteā (“afterwards; hereafter; thereafter; next, then”), from post (“after; since”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pós (“afterwards”)) + ea (“these (things)”); and né from Latin nātus (“born”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to beget; to give birth; to produce”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
5 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,787)
How it is built
Same root, PUNY · 3 relatives in the game
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
PUNY in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 42 boards so far. 151 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 25, 14 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 165, 1 November 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 3 days.
First found by a player on Day 25, 14 June 2026.
Built from these letters
PUNY starts with P and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read NPUY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Also seen on Day 25
Could you have found PUNY?
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 25 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER