The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
BURN
Definition of BURN
noun
A physical injury caused by heat, cold, electricity, radiation or caustic chemicals.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English barnin, bearne, beerne, beornen, berne, bernen, birne, burne, burnen, bærnen, which arose via the metathesis of branne, brennen, brennyn, brynne, from Old English beornan, biernan, birnan, byrnan, from Proto-West Germanic *brinnan, from Proto-Germanic *brinnaną (“to burn”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrenw-, present stem from *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil; to brew”). The East Midland forms were heavily influenced by Old Norse brenna, brinna (“to burn”). Doublet of brew. The late metathesis of East Midland brin- to birn- (and subsequently burn-) parallels the phonological development of bird and dirt from brid and drit. As this metathesized form became the Chancery Standard, it completely displaced the semantic functions and weak conjugation paradigm of the native Old English bærnan (weak), alongside the surviving remnants of byrnan (strong). Cognate with Cimbrian prönnan (“to burn”), Dutch barnen, branden (“to burn”), German brinnen (“to burn”), Luxembourgish brennen (“to burn”), Vilamovian brīn (“to burn”), Yiddish ברענען (brenen, “to burn”), Danish brænde (“to burn”), Faroese and Icelandic brenna (“to burn”), Norwegian Bokmål brenne (“to burn”), Norwegian Nynorsk brenna, brenne (“to burn”), Swedish brinna (“to burn”), Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌹𐌽𐌽𐌰𐌽 (brinnan, “to burn”); also Cornish bros (“blazing, boiling”), Irish bruth (“heat; eruption; surf”), Welsh brwd (“eager, keen; passionate, zealous”), Latin defrutum (“grape must reduced by boiling”), Ancient Greek πορφύρω (porphúrō, “to boil, heave”), Albanian burth (“Cyclamen hederifolium; mouth burning”), Armenian աղբյուր (aġbyur, “fountain, spring”), Sanskrit भुर्वन् (bhurvan, “runnel, spring”). More at brew.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
BURN in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 7 boards so far.
It first turned up on Day 7, 28 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 113, 10 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 9 days.
First found by a player on Day 23, 12 June 2026.
Also on
Built from these letters
BURN starts with B and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read BNRU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start BURN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 7
Could you have found BURN?
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 7 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER