The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.

CLEAN

/kliːn/5 letters

Definition of CLEAN

adjective

Free of dirt, filth, or impurities (extraneous matter); not dirty, filthy, or soiled.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Where it comes from

From Middle English clene, from Old English clāne, clǣne (“clean; pure; clear”), from Proto-West Germanic *klainī (“dainty, fine, small; clean”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *glēy- (“gleaming”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to gleam”). Cognate with Alemannic German chlei, chli, chlii, chly, klei (“small”), Bavarian gloa, kla, klaa, kloa, kloan (“small; young; insignificant”), Central Franconian and Low German kleen (“small”), Cimbrian khlòan, khlumma (“small”), Dutch and German klein (“small”), Limburgish klein, kléïn (“small”), Luxembourgish kleng (“small”), Mòcheno khloa'n (“small”), Vilamovian klin (“small”), Yiddish קליין (kleyn, “small”), Danish klejn (“delicate, tiny”), Faroese klænur (“slight, slim, thin”), Icelandic klénn (“feeble, poor; indisposed; short; lame; good, pretty, snug”), Norwegian Bokmål klein, klen (“slender; sick; feeble; bad, poor, weak; inept”), Swedish klen (“weak”).

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

Rarity score
Withheld
Revealed only in play
Tier
Withheld
Find it yourself

OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.

CLEAN in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 11 boards so far. 11 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 109
Its 11 boards, across 109 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
11
Boards found on
9
First board
104
Latest board
24
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 9, 29 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 104, 1 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 5 days.

First found by a player on Day 9, 29 May 2026.

Built from these letters

CLEAN
5
Letters
2
Vowels
3
Consonants
5
Different letters
2
Longest consonant run
2
Longest vowel run

CLEAN starts with C and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read ACELN - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.

Same letters, different word

2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.

Words that start CLEAN

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

Could you have found CLEAN?

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 9 - and most players walked straight past it.

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