The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
HYOID
Definition of HYOID
adjective
Shaped like a U, or like the letter upsilon (υ).
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Borrowing from French hyoïde, from New Latin hȳoīdēs, from Ancient Greek ῡ̔οειδής (hūoeidḗs, “shaped like the letter "υ"”), from ὖ (û, “the Greek letter upsilon”) + -ο- (-o-) + -ειδής (-eidḗs, “-like, -oid”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
- Ancient Greek
- Latin
- French
- English
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
12.6%
of traced words share this origin (3,724)
branch · 12.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, HYOID · 1 relative 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.
HYOID in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 75 boards so far. 199 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 21, 10 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 150, 17 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First found by a player on Day 21, 10 June 2026.
Built from these letters
HYOID starts with H and ends with D. Sorted, its letters read DHIOY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start HYOID
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 21
Could you have found HYOID?
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 21 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER