The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
BALL
Definition of BALL
noun
A solid or hollow sphere, or roughly spherical mass.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English bal, ball, balle, from an unattested Old English *beall, *bealla (“round object, ball”), from Proto-Germanic *balluz, *ballô (“ball”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰol-n- (“ball, bubble”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to blow, inflate, swell”). Cognate with Old Saxon ball, Dutch bal, Old High German bal, ballo (German Ball (“ball”); Ballen (“bale”)). Related forms in Romance are borrowings from Germanic. See also balloon, bale.
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
14.4%
of traced words share this origin (11,201)
How it is built
Same root, BALL · 4 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Dutch.
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.
BALL in OUTLIER
It has fitted 2 boards so far.
It first turned up on Day 110, 7 September 2026. The most recent board was Day 137, 4 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 20 days.
First found by a player on Day 110, 7 September 2026.
Built from these letters
BALL starts with B and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read ABLL - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. L appears more than once, including a double letter.
Words that start BALL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found BALL?
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 110 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER