SHARK

Where it comes from

From Middle English shark (used by Thomas Beckington in 1442 to refer to a kind of fish), of uncertain origin. Most likely from a semantic extension of the German-derived shark (“scoundrel”), see below. The fish was originally called a dogfish or haye in English and Middle English. Its name in Old English is unknown, although some uses of the word hranfisċ that do not appear to carry the sense of "whale" may have been referencing it. Some older dictionaries derived the word from Latin c(h)archarias, c(h)acharus (from Ancient Greek), but admit that "the requisite [Old French] forms intermediate between E. shark and L. carcharus are not found, and it is not certain that the name [shark] was orig. applied to the fish; it may have been first used of a greedy man". Other older authorities speculated that the word might derive from Yucatec Maya xok (“fish”) (/ʃok/), as John Hawkins brought a specimen from the area where Mayan was spoken to England in the 1560s. However, the 1442 use rules out a New World origin for the word.

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

SHARK in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 15 boards so far. 42 players have found it across Outlier's history.

It first turned up on Day 21, 10 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 109, 6 September 2026. It was on the latest finished board.

First found by a player on Day 21, 10 June 2026.

Built from these letters

SHARK starts with S and ends with K. Sorted, its letters read AHKRS - 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 SHARK

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

Also seen on Day 21