The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
PETRIFY
Definition of PETRIFY
verb
To turn to stone: to harden organic matter by permeating with water and depositing dissolved minerals.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
PETRIFY carries 4 further meanings.
transitive verb
To convert (wood or other organic matter) into a stony replica by petrifaction.
transitive verb
To cause to lose vitality or become impervious to change; deaden.
“a routine that petrified her thinking.”
transitive verb
To stun or paralyze with terror; daze.
To convert into stone or a stony substance; change into stone.
Where it comes from
From Middle French pétrifier, from Medieval Latin petrificāre, from Latin petra (“rock”), from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra, “rock”) + -ficāre, from facere (“do, make”), equivalent to petro- + -ify.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
12.6%
of traced words share this origin (3,666)
branch · 12.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, PETRIFY · 2 relatives in the game
PETRIFY in a sentence
“The build-up of petrify occurs when petrify is churned in colder weather.”
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
PETRIFY in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 46 boards so far. 148 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 7, 28 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 142, 9 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 4 days.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
PETRIFY starts with P and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read EFIPRTY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that mean much the same
Near-synonyms of PETRIFY. Not interchangeable at the board - the grid decides that - but close in meaning.
Words that start PETRIF
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 7
Could you have found PETRIFY?
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 7 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER