The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
RUTH
Definition of RUTH
noun
Sorrow for the misery of another person; compassion, mercy, pity.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English ruthe, reuthe, reuþe, reowthe, rewthe (“compassion, pity, sympathy; mercy; grief, sorrow; cause or event of pity or sorrow; lamentation; calamity, trouble; distress; regret, remorse; cruelty, ill treatment”), from reu, reuen (“to feel compassion or pity; to regret, rue; etc.”) + -th, -the (suffix denoting a condition, quality, state of being, etc.), possibly influenced by an early Scandinavian language (compare Old Norse hrygð, hryggð (“affliction, grief, sorrow, ruth”), from the Proto-Germanic word indicated below). Reuen is derived from Old English hrēowan (“to grieve; to regret, rue; to repent”), from Proto-West Germanic *hreuwan (“to cause pain; to regret”), from Proto-Germanic *hrewwaną (“to cause regret, rue; to feel sorrow, grieve”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *krew(H)-, possibly related to Proto-Indo-European *krewh₂- (“blood”) and *krows- (“to fall, beat, break, bruise”). By surface analysis, rue (“to regret; etc.”) + -th (suffix forming abstract nouns from verbs).
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.
RUTH in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 27 boards so far. 33 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 20, 9 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 110, 7 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First ever to find it
on Day 20, 9 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
RUTH starts with R and ends with H. Sorted, its letters read HRTU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start RUTH
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 20
Could you have found RUTH?
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 20 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER