The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
RECURSIVE
Definition of RECURSIVE
adjective
Drawing upon, invoking, or referring back to itself.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Learned borrowing from New Latin recursīvus. Equivalent to recurse + -ive.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
- Latin
- English
One recorded step before English.
Deepest traced root
1st
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
30.7%
of traced words share this origin (25,613)
branch · 30.7% of traced words
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.
RECURSIVE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 1 board so far.
It first turned up on Day 138, 5 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 31 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 138, 5 October 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
RECURSIVE starts with R and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read CEEIRRSUV - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. R and E appear more than once.
Words that start RECURS
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found RECURSIVE?
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 138 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER