The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
BELAY
Definition of BELAY
verb
To make (a rope) fast by turning it around a fastening point such as a cleat.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English beleggen, bileggen, from Old English beleċġan (“to cover, invest, surround, afflict, attribute to, charge with, accuse”), From Proto-West Germanic *bilaggjan, equivalent to be- (“about, around”) + lay. Cognate with Dutch beleggen (“to cover, overlay, belay”), German belegen (“to cover, occupy, belay”), Swedish belägga (“to pave”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
8th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
3.3%
of traced words share this origin (2,611)
branch · 22.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, BELAY · 5 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Dutch, Swedish.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
BELAY in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 44 boards so far. 130 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 24, 13 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 156, 23 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 24, 13 June 2026.
Built from these letters
BELAY starts with B and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read ABELY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
One other word uses exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start BELAY
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 24
Could you have found BELAY?
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 24 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER