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

GLOW

/ɡləʊ/4 letters

Definition of GLOW

verb

To emit heat and light without a flame.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Where it comes from

The verb is derived from Middle English glouen, glowen (“to give off heat and light without flame; of a thing: to be heated until red hot; to be brightly coloured; to shine brightly; (figurative) to be filled with emotion; of the face, etc.: to turn red, flush; etc.”), and then either: both from Proto-Germanic *glōaną (“to glow”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰleh₁- (“to shine, glow; to be shining, glowing”). Possibly a doublet of glass. The noun is derived from the verb.

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

Word DNA

Line of descent

  1. Proto-Indo-European
  2. Proto-Germanic
  3. Middle English
  4. English

3 recorded generations before English.

Proto-Indo-European

Deepest traced root

2nd

of 59 source languages in OUTLIER

14.3%

of traced words share this origin (11,293)

How it is built

verb1 syllable

Same root, GLOW · 9 relatives in the game

Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →

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.

GLOW in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 23 boards so far. 28 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 159
Its 23 boards, across 159 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
23
Boards found on
25
First board
158
Latest board
26
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 25, 14 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 158, 25 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.

First found by a player on Day 25, 14 June 2026.

Built from these letters

GLOW
4
Letters
1
Vowels
3
Consonants
4
Different letters
2
Longest consonant run
1
Longest vowel run

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

Same letters, different word

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

Words that start GLOW

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

Could you have found GLOW?

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 25 - and most players walked straight past it.

Play today's OUTLIER