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

FEAR

/fɪə/4 letters

Definition of FEAR

noun

A strong, unpleasant emotion or feeling caused by actual or perceived danger or threat.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Where it comes from

From Middle English feer, fere, fer (“fear”), from Old English fǣr, ġefǣr (“calamity, sudden danger, peril, sudden attack, terrible sight”), from Proto-Germanic *fērō, *fērą (“danger”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“to go through, carry forth, try”). Cognate with Dutch gevaar (“danger, risk, peril”), German Gefahr (“danger, hazard, risk”), Danish fare (“danger, hazard, risk”), Faroese and Icelandic fár (“accident, anger, calamity”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk fare (“danger”), Swedish fara (“danger, risk, peril”), Latin perīculum (“danger, risk, trial”), Ancient Greek πεῖρα (peîra, “trial, experiment”), Armenian փորձ (pʻorj, “attempt”). Doublet of peril. The verb is from Middle English feren, from Old English fǣran (“to frighten, raven”), from the noun. Cognate with the archaic Dutch verb varen (“to fear, to cause fear”).

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.

FEAR in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 17 boards so far. 21 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 109
Its 17 boards, across 109 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
17
Boards found on
2
First board
108
Latest board
27
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 2, 23 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 108, 5 September 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

FEAR
4
Letters
2
Vowels
2
Consonants
4
Different letters
1
Longest consonant run
2
Longest vowel run

FEAR starts with F and ends with R. Sorted, its letters read AEFR - 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 FEAR

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

FEAREFEARSFEARTFEAREDFEARERFEARESFEARERSFEARFULFEARINGFEARLESSFEARSOMEFEARFULLY

Could you have found FEAR?

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 2 - and most players walked straight past it.

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The OUTLIER card for FEARDownload image