The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
NAIL
Definition of NAIL
noun
The horny plate or appendage at the ends of the digits of various animals, including most reptiles, birds, and mammals (both nonhuman and human).
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English nail, nayl, Old English næġl, from Proto-West Germanic *nagl, from Proto-Germanic *naglaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₃nogʰ- (“nail”). Compare North Frisian Nail (“nail”), Saterland Frisian Nail (“nail”), West Frisian neil, German and Low German Nagel, Dutch and Swedish nagel, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål negl, Norwegian Nynorsk nagl, Finnish naula (“nail”), Estonian nael (“nail”), (compare Irish ionga, Latin unguis, Albanian nyell (“ankle, hard part of a limb”), Lithuanian nagas, Russian нога́ (nogá, “foot, leg”), но́готь (nógotʹ, “nail”), Ancient Greek ὄνυξ (ónux), Persian ناخن (nâxon), Sanskrit नख (nakhá).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
NAIL in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 11 boards so far. 10 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 6, 27 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 109, 6 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 12 days.
First found by a player on Day 33, 22 June 2026.
Built from these letters
NAIL starts with N and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read AILN - 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 NAIL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 6
Could you have found NAIL?
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 6 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER