The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SCREW
Definition of SCREW
noun
A device that has a helical function. A simple machine, a helical inclined plane. A (usually) metal fastener consisting of a partially or completely threaded shank, sometimes with a threaded point, and a head used to both hold the top material and to drive the screw either directly into a soft material or into a prepared hole. A ship's propeller. An Archimedes screw. A steam vessel propelled by a screw instead of wheels.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English screw, scrue (“screw”); apparently, despite the difference in meaning, from Old French escroue (“nut, cylindrical socket, screwhole”), from Latin scrōfa (“female pig”) through comparison with the corkscrew shape of a pig's penis. There is also the Old French escruve (“screw”), from Old Dutch *scrūva ("screw"; whence Middle Dutch schruyve (“screw”)), which probably influenced or conflated with the aforementioned, resulting in the Middle English word. Old French escroue (whence Medieval Latin scrofa (“nut, screwhole”)), is believed to be an adaptation of Latin scrōfa (“sow, female pig”); but this development is not found in other Romance languages. (For change in meaning, compare also Spanish puerca, Portuguese porca, both ‘sow; screw nut’, and is based on the fact that a boar's penis has a screw-like tip, making the sow's vulva equivalent to a screw nut by analogy). Old Dutch *scrūva possibly derives from Proto-Germanic *skrūbō (“screw”), from *skru- (“to cut”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)keru-, *(s)ker- (“to cut”), and is related to German Schraube (“screw”), Low German schruve, schruwe (“screw”), Dutch schroef (“screw”), West Frisian skroef (“screw”), Danish skrue (“screw”), Swedish skruv (“screw, peg”), Icelandic skrúfa (“screw”). Compare also Occitan escrofa (“screw nut”), Calabrese scrufina (“screw nut”), which may be borrowings of the Old French word, or parallel developments.
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.
SCREW in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 5 boards so far.
It first turned up on Day 39, 28 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 98, 26 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 11 days.
First found by a player on Day 39, 28 June 2026.
Built from these letters
SCREW starts with S and ends with W. Sorted, its letters read CERSW - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
One other word uses exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start SCREW
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 39
Could you have found SCREW?
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 39 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER