The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
COAL
Definition of COAL
noun
A black or brownish black rock formed from prehistoric plant remains, composed largely of carbon and burned as a fuel.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English col, from Old English col, from Proto-West Germanic *kol, from Proto-Germanic *kulą (“coal”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵwelH- (“to burn, shine”). Cognate with North Frisian kööl (“coal”), Saterland Frisian Koole (“coal”), West Frisian koal (“coal”), Cimbrian kholl (“coal”), Dutch kool (“coal; carbon”), German Kohle (“coal”), Limburgish Kǫe̩l (“coal”), Luxembourgish Kuel (“coal”), Vilamovian köła (“coal”), Yiddish קויל (koyl, “coal”), Danish kul (“coal”), Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish kol (“coal; carbon”), Jamtish kuł (“coal; carbon”), Norwegian Bokmål kol, kull (“coal”). Compare Irish and Scottish Gaelic gual (“coal”), Manx geayl (“coal”), Lithuanian žvi̇̀lti (“to glow, twinkle”), Persian زکال (zakâl), زکار (zekâr), زغال (zoġâl, “coal”), Tocharian B śoliye (“hearth”), Sanskrit ज्वल् (jval, “to burn, glow”), all from the same root.
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
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,700)
How it is built
Same root, COAL · 16 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Irish, Norwegian, Persian, Sanskrit, Scottish Gaelic and 2 more.
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.
COAL in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 16 boards so far. 16 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 7, 28 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 165, 1 November 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
COAL starts with C and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read ACLO - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
4 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start COAL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 7
Could you have found COAL?
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