The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SELF
Definition of SELF
pronoun
Himself, herself, itself, themself, themselves; that specific (person mentioned).
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English salve, self, silf, from Old English self, seolf, sylf, from Proto-Germanic *selbaz, from Proto-Indo-European *selbʰ- (“one's own”). Cognates with Saterland Frisian sälven, säärm, sääuwen (“oneself”), West Frisian sels (“oneself”), Bavarian söbe (“identical, same”), söber (“self”), Dutch zelf (“myself, oneself”), German selber (“self”), selbst (“by oneself”), Luxembourgish selwer (“self”), Yiddish זעלב (zelb, “same”), Danish selv (“self”), Elfdalian siuov (“self”), Faroese sjálvur (“self”), Icelandic sjálfur (“self”), Norwegian Bokmål selv, Norwegian Nynorsk sjølv, Swedish själv (“self”), Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌻𐌱𐌰 (silba, “self”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
9%
of traced words share this origin (2,585)
How it is built
Same root, SELF · 1 relative in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish.
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.
SELF in OUTLIER
It has fitted 2 boards so far. 22 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 76, 4 August 2026. The most recent board was Day 118, 15 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 24 days.
First found by a player on Day 19, 8 June 2026.
Built from these letters
SELF starts with S and ends with F. Sorted, its letters read EFLS - 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 SELF
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found SELF?
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 76 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER