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

FUSTY

/ˈfʌsti/5 letters

Definition of FUSTY

adjective

Moldy or musty.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Other senses

FUSTY carries 4 further meanings.

  1. adjective

    Smelling of mildew or decay; musty.

  2. adjective

    Old-fashioned; antique.

  3. Moldy; musty; ill-smelling; rank; rancid.

  4. Moping.

Where it comes from

From Middle English fusty, equivalent to fust + -y. Compare Scots foosty.

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

FUSTY in a sentence

The stem snapped in half years ago, and its case is worn, but it still exudes a kind of fusty dignity.

The uneasy namesake, 2011

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.

FUSTY in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 43 boards so far. 169 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 102
Its 43 boards, across 102 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
43
Boards found on
28
First board
102
Latest board
5
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 28, 17 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 102, 30 August 2026. It was on the latest finished board.

First ever to find it

bob

on Day 28, 17 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers

Built from these letters

FUSTY
5
Letters
1
Vowels
4
Consonants
5
Different letters
3
Longest consonant run
1
Longest vowel run

FUSTY starts with F and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read FSTUY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.

Words that mean much the same

Near-synonyms of FUSTY. Not interchangeable at the board - the grid decides that - but close in meaning.

ARCHAICBACK-NUMBERBADBAD-SMELLINGBANALBEWHISKEREDBLASTEDBLIGHTED

Same letters, different word

One other word uses exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.

Could you have found FUSTY?

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 28 - and most players walked straight past it.

Play today's OUTLIER

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The OUTLIER card for FUSTYDownload image

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

from The Century Dictionary.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

Senses and citation via Wordnik.