The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
OBSCENE
Definition of OBSCENE
adjective
Offensive to standards of decency or morality.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle French obscene (modern French obscène (“indecent, obscene”)), and from its etymon Latin obscēnus, obscaenus (“inauspicious; ominous; disgusting, filthy; offensive, repulsive; indecent, lewd, obscene”). The further etymology is uncertain, but may be from ob- (prefix meaning ‘towards’) + caenum (“dirt, filth; mire, mud”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱweyn- (“to make dirty, soil; filth; mud”)) or scaevus (“left, on the left side; clumsy; (figurative) unlucky”) (from Proto-Indo-European *skeh₂iwo-). If from caenum, the unexpected extra -s- may be from a variant form of the original PIE root; a similar -s- exists in ex-.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,575)
How it is built
Same root, OBSCENE · 3 relatives in the game
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
OBSCENE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 15 boards so far. 18 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 73, 1 August 2026. The most recent board was Day 164, 31 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First ever to find it
on Day 73, 1 August 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
OBSCENE starts with O and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read BCEENOS - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. E appears more than once.
Words that start OBSCEN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found OBSCENE?
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 73 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER