The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
QUINE
Definition of QUINE
noun
A program that produces its own source code as output.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Quine, named after the American logician and philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000). Verb verb sense 1 (“to append (a text) to a quotation of itself”) was coined by the American cognitive and computer scientist Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945) in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979; see the quotation), referring to Quine’s study of indirect self-reference and in particular Quine’s paradox, the following statement that produces a paradox: “‘Yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation’ yields falsehood when preceded by its quotation.” Hofstadter also referred to the concept of noun noun sense 1 (“program that produces its own source code as output”) in the book, but termed it a self-rep rather than a quine. Verb verb sense 2 (“to deny the importance or significance of (something obviously real or important)”) was independently coined by the American cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942–2024) in September 1969 in the original version of his work The Philosophical Lexicon: see the 1987 quotation.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
How it is built
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
QUINE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 13 boards so far. 65 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 40, 29 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 126, 23 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 17 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 40, 29 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
QUINE starts with Q and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read EINQU - 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 QUINE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 40
Could you have found QUINE?
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 40 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER