The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
EARWORM
Definition of EARWORM
noun
A tune that keeps replaying in one's head or that one keeps thinking about, especially if unwanted.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From ear + worm; senses 1 and 3 (“tune that keeps replaying in one’s head”; “earwig”) are a calque of German Ohrwurm (“tune that pops up in one’s memory all the time; earwig”) (from the idea of a creature burrowing into the ear, an erroneous belief where earwigs are concerned), while sense 2 (“moth larva”) refers to the fact that these pests infest, among other things, ears of maize or sweet corn.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
- German
- English
One recorded step before English.
Deepest traced root
8th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
3.3%
of traced words share this origin (2,773)
branch · 22.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, EARWORM · 1 relative in the game
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
EARWORM in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 1 board so far.
It first turned up on Day 154, 21 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 15 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 154, 21 October 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
EARWORM starts with E and ends with M. Sorted, its letters read AEMORRW - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. R appears more than once.
Could you have found EARWORM?
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 154 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER