The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
ALIEN
Definition of ALIEN
noun
A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English alien, a borrowing from Old French alien, aliene, from Latin aliēnus (“belonging to someone else”, later “exotic, foreign”), from Latin alius (“other”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂élyos. Related to English else.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.3%
of traced words share this origin (11,293)
How it is built
Same root, ALIEN · 8 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.
ALIEN in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 14 boards so far. 16 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 33, 22 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 160, 27 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 33, 22 June 2026.
Built from these letters
ALIEN starts with A and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read AEILN - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
5 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start ALIEN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 33
Could you have found ALIEN?
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 33 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER