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

MIDGE

/mɪd͡ʒ/5 letters

Definition of MIDGE

noun

Any of various small two-winged flies, for example, from the family Chironomidae or non-biting midges, the family Chaoboridae or phantom midges, and the family Ceratopogonidae or biting midges, all belonging to the order Diptera.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Where it comes from

From Middle English mydge, migge, from Old English myġġ, myċġ (“midge, gnat, mosquito”), from Proto-West Germanic *muggju, from Proto-Germanic *mugjō, from Proto-Indo-European *mū-, *mu-, *mew- (“fly, midge”). The dialectal sense of "short person" was originally figurative, and gave rise to midget (“short person”) via the diminutive suffix -et, which has since become part of standard English with that meaning; this has caused midge to undergo rebracketing as a clipping of midget. The Proto-Indo-European root was also the source of

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

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.

MIDGE in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 39 boards so far. 98 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 111
Its 39 boards, across 111 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
39
Boards found on
11
First board
107
Latest board
11
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 11, 31 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 107, 4 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 4 days.

First found by a player on Day 11, 31 May 2026.

Built from these letters

MIDGE
5
Letters
2
Vowels
3
Consonants
5
Different letters
2
Longest consonant run
1
Longest vowel run

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

Words that start MIDGE

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

Could you have found MIDGE?

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 11 - and most players walked straight past it.

Play today's OUTLIER

Share MIDGE

The OUTLIER card for MIDGEDownload image