The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
QUAIL
Definition of QUAIL
verb
To waste away; to fade, to wither.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English quaylen, from Middle Dutch queilen, quēlen, from Old Dutch *quelan, from Proto-West Germanic *kwelan, from Proto-Germanic *kwelaną (“to suffer”). Doublet of queal.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
6th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
4.7%
of traced words share this origin (3,691)
branch · 22.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, QUAIL · 4 relatives in the game
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
QUAIL in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 17 boards so far. 155 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 10, 30 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 150, 17 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 7 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 10, 30 May 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
QUAIL starts with Q and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read AILQU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram. It uses Q - among the least common letters in written English.
Words that start QUAIL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found QUAIL?
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 10 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER