The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
POOL
Definition of POOL
noun
A small and rather deep area of (usually) fresh water, as one supplied by a spring, or occurring in the course of a stream or river; a reservoir for water.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English pool, pole, pol, from Old English pōl (“pool”), from Proto-West Germanic pōl, from Proto-Germanic *pōlaz (“pool, pond”), from Proto-Indo-European *bōlos (“bog, marsh”). Cognate with Scots puil (“pool”), Saterland Frisian Pol (“pool”), West Frisian poel (“pool”), Dutch poel (“pool”), German Low German Pohl, Pool, Pul (“pool”), German Pfuhl (“quagmire, mudhole”), Danish pøl (“puddle”), Swedish pöl (“puddle, pool”), Icelandic pollur (“puddle”), Lithuanian bala (“puddle”), Latvian bala (“a muddly, treeless depression”), Russian боло́то (bolóto, “swamp, bog, marsh”). For the meaning development to a supply of resources compare typologically Russian пруд пруди́ (prud prudí) (< пруд (prud)).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.3%
of traced words share this origin (11,293)
How it is built
Same root, POOL · 7 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Russian, Scots, Swedish.
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.
POOL in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 30 boards so far. 48 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 25, 14 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 156, 23 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 4 days.
First found by a player on Day 25, 14 June 2026.
Built from these letters
POOL starts with P and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read LOOP - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. O appears more than once, including a double letter.
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 POOL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 25
Could you have found POOL?
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 25 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER