The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
FOMITE
Definition of FOMITE
noun
An inanimate object capable of carrying infectious agents (such as bacteria, viruses or prions), and thus passively enabling their transmission between hosts; common examples include towels, dishcloths, kitchenware/flatware, and laundry.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
FOMITE carries 3 further meanings.
noun
An inanimate object or substance that is capable of transmitting infectious organisms from one individual to another.
noun
An inanimate object capable of carrying infectious agents (such as bacteria, viruses and parasites), and thus passively enabling their transmission between hosts.
noun
any inanimate object (as a towel or money or clothing or dishes or books or toys etc.) that can transmit infectious agents from one person to another
Where it comes from
A back-formation from fomites, plural of fomes, a borrowing of medical Latin fōmes (“tinder, kindling”), used figuratively to evoke the analogy of a spreading infection to a spreading fire.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
- Latin
- English
One recorded step before English.
Deepest traced root
1st
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
33%
of traced words share this origin (9,764)
branch · 33% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, FOMITE · 1 relative in the game
FOMITE in a sentence
“Furthermore, I found it hard to believe that Dr. Erin Mears Kate Winslet has to define the word fomite for senior staffers at the Minnesota Department of Health.”
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
FOMITE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 45 boards so far. 81 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 20, 9 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 150, 17 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First ever to find it
on Day 20, 9 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
FOMITE starts with F and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read EFIMOT - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Also seen on Day 20
Could you have found FOMITE?
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 20 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER