The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
GINKGO
Definition of GINKGO
noun
Any trees native to China with small, fan-shaped leaves and edible seeds.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Japanese 銀杏 (ginkyō), from Chinese 銀杏／银杏 (yínxìng, “silver apricot”). Ginkgo is the name that is printed in Amoenitatum exoticarum politico-physico-medicarum Fasciculi V [...] (1712) authored by Engelbert Kaempfer, the first Westerner to see the species. In his way of transcription ginkyo would have been Ginkjo or Ginkio but was printed as Ginkgo. This was read by Carl Linnaeus, and the misspelling stuck.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
2 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
33rd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
0.2%
of traced words share this origin (167)
branch · 0.3% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, GINKGO · 5 relatives 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.
GINKGO in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 1 board so far.
It first turned up on Day 173, 9 November 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 3 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 173, 9 November 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
GINKGO starts with G and ends with O. Sorted, its letters read GGIKNO - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. G appears more than once.
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 GINKGO?
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 173 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER