The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
HOTEL
Definition of HOTEL
noun
Alternative letter-case form of Hotel of the ICAO/NATO radiotelephony alphabet.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Borrowed from French hôtel, from Middle French hostel, from Old French ostel, from Late Latin hospitālis (“hospice, shelter, guesthouse”), from Latin hospitālis (“hospitable”). Doublet of hostel and hospital.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
- Latin
- Old French
- Middle French
- English
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
1st
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
30.6%
of traced words share this origin (24,817)
branch · 30.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, HOTEL · 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.
HOTEL in OUTLIER
It has fitted 1 board so far. 35 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 146, 13 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 16 days.
First found by a player on Day 8, 29 May 2026.
Built from these letters
HOTEL starts with H and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read EHLOT - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start HOTEL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found HOTEL?
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 146 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER