The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
GHOSTLY
Definition of GHOSTLY
adjective
Of or pertaining to ghosts or spirits.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English gostly, gastlich, from Old English gāstlīċ (“spiritual, holy, clerical (not lay), ghastly, ghostly, spectral”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaistalīk (“spiritual”), equivalent to ghost + -ly. Cognate with Scots ghaistly, gaistly (“spiritual, ghastly, terrifying”), West Frisian geastlik (“spiritual, clerical, religious”), Dutch geestelijk (“spiritual, clerical, ecclesiastical”), German geistlich (“spiritual, sacred, religious”), Danish geistlig (“ecclesiastical, clerical”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
8th
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
3.1%
of traced words share this origin (900)
branch · 22.3% of traced words
How it is built
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch, Scots.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
GHOSTLY in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 64 boards so far. 229 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 7, 28 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 144, 11 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 3 days.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
GHOSTLY starts with G and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read GHLOSTY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start GHOSTL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 7
Could you have found GHOSTLY?
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