‘Outlier’ Is a New Word-Search Game That Makes Me Feel Smart

I love finding daily games that let you play with words in new ways, and my latest favorite is Outlier . We’ve seen daily word searches before (maybe you use our daily Strands hints ?), but this one is a bit different. Instead of finding specific words—or the most words—you’re asked to find the rarest words you can.  When you play Outlier, you’re given a grid of letters. The grid isn’t the important part; you don’t have to worry about which letters touch each other. Think of them more like a pile of Scrabble tiles, and use as many as you like, in any order, to create a word.  You’ll be scored on how unusual your picks are, compared to their frequency in the English language. If you go for the obvious words—RATS, STAR, TARS—you won’t score very highly. But if you can find rare words, you’ll gain more points. Each possible word has a rarity score, and you’re judged on how good your total score is compared to the 10 best (rarest) words that you could have potentially found. But besides that scoring, there’s also the question of whether you’re finding words that other players have found. After your game finishes, you’ll find out about those. The first time I played, I found three words that nobody else had found that day (yet): SKIVE, WHOLES, and WAIN. I knew “wain” from reading old books; it was the medieval name for the Big Dipper constellation, referring to a f…