The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
QUERN
Definition of QUERN
noun
A mill for grinding corn, especially a handmill made of two circular stones.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English quern, cwerne, from Old English cweorn (“quern, hand-mill, mill”), from Proto-Germanic *kwernō (“millstone”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷréh₂wō (“heavy stone”), from *gʷréh₂us (“heavy”). Cognate with Swedish kvarn, Tocharian B kärweñe, Lithuanian girna, Russian жёрнов (žórnov, “millstone”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
8.9%
of traced words share this origin (2,622)
How it is built
Same root, QUERN · 1 relative in the game
Its etymology also names Russian, 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.
QUERN in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 13 boards so far. 60 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 38, 27 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 126, 23 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 22 days.
First found by a player on Day 38, 27 June 2026.
Built from these letters
QUERN starts with Q and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read ENQRU - 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 QUERN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 38
Could you have found QUERN?
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 38 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER