The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SCHERZO
Definition of SCHERZO
noun
A piece of music or a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony; especially, a piece of music played in a playful manner.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Italian scherzo (“joke, play”), from scherzare (“to joke, jest”), from Lombardic *skerzan (“to jump merrily, enjoy oneself, jest”), from Proto-Germanic *skertaną (“to hop, jump”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kerǝd- (“to dance, jump”). Akin to Middle High German scherzen (“to frolic, jump merrily, hop up and down”) (modern German scherzen (“to joke”), Scherz), Norwegian skjerta (“to joke”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.3%
of traced words share this origin (11,293)
How it is built
Same root, SCHERZO · 1 relative in the game
Its etymology also names Norwegian.
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.
SCHERZO in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 7 boards so far. 13 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 29, 18 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 160, 27 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 29, 18 June 2026.
Also on
Built from these letters
SCHERZO starts with S and ends with O. Sorted, its letters read CEHORSZ - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram. It uses Z - among the least common letters in written English.
Words that start SCHERZ
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 29
Could you have found SCHERZO?
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 29 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER