The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SHAFT
Definition of SHAFT
noun
The entire body of a long weapon, such as an arrow.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English chafte, saft, scaft, schaft, schafte, scheft, shaffet, shaft, from Old English sċeaft, from Proto-West Germanic *skaft, from Proto-Germanic *skaftaz (“shaft”), from Proto-Indo-European *skeh₂p- (“club, rod, shaft, staff”). Cognate with Dutch schacht (“shaft”), German Schaft (“shaft”), Low German Schacht, Skacht (“shaft; cane, stick; beating”), Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish skaft (“handle; stem; shaft”); also Latin scapus (“stalk, stem; shaft”), Greek σκήπτρο (skíptro, “sceptre”), Albanian shkop (“staff, stick”), Belarusian кап'ё (kapʺjó, “spear”), Bulgarian ко́пие (kópie, “spear”), Czech kopí (“spear”), Macedonian копје (kopje, “spear”), Polish kopia (“spear”), Russian копьё (kopʹjó, “spear”), Serbo-Croatian ко̏пље, kȍplje (“spear”), Slovak kopija (“spear”), Slovene kopje (“javelin”). In Early Modern English, shaft referred to the entire body of a long weapon, such that an arrow's “shaft” was composed of its tip, stale, and fletching. Over time, the word came to be used in place of the former stale and lost its original meaning.
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.
SHAFT in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 16 boards so far. 25 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 8, 29 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 102, 30 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 9 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 8, 29 May 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
SHAFT starts with S and ends with T. Sorted, its letters read AFHST - 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 SHAFT
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 8
Could you have found SHAFT?
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 8 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER