The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
HOWELS
Definition of HOWELS
verb
third-person singular simple present indicative of howel
noun
A plane-like tool used by coopers for smoothing and chamfering their work, especially the inside of casks.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Word DNA
HOWELS inherits its ancestry from its root, HOWEL.
Line of descent
- German
- English
One recorded step before English.
Deepest traced root
8th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
3.3%
of traced words share this origin (2,780)
branch · 22.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, HOWEL · 1 relative in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Swedish.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
HOWELS in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 2 boards so far.
It first turned up on Day 158, 25 October 2026. The most recent board was Day 165, 1 November 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 5 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 158, 25 October 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
HOWELS starts with H and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read EHLOSW - 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.
Could you have found HOWELS?
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 158 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER