The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
QUALM
Definition of QUALM
noun
A feeling of apprehension, doubt, fear etc.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Perhaps from Middle English qualm, cwalm (“death, sickness, plague”), which is from Old English cwealm (West Saxon: "death, disaster, plague"), ūtcualm (Anglian: "utter destruction"), from Proto-West Germanic *kwalm (“killing, death, destruction”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to stick, pierce; pain, injury, death”), whence also quell. Although the sense development is possible, this has the problem that there are no attestations in intermediate senses before the appearance of "pang of apprehension, etc." in the 16th century. The alternative etymology is from Dutch kwalm or German Qualm (“steam, vapor, mist”) earlier “daze, stupefaction”, which is from the root of German quellen (“to stream, well up”). The sense “feeling of faintness” is from 1530; “uneasiness, doubt” from 1553; “scruple of conscience” from 1649.
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.
QUALM in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 10 boards so far. 78 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 12, 1 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 96, 24 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 3 days.
First found by a player on Day 12, 1 June 2026.
Built from these letters
QUALM starts with Q and ends with M. Sorted, its letters read ALMQU - 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 QUALM
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 12
Could you have found QUALM?
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 12 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER