The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SHEER
Definition of SHEER
adjective
Very thin or transparent.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English shere, scheere, schere, skere, from Old English sċǣre (“pure, sheer; shining, clear”), from Proto-Germanic *skairiz; supplanted the semantically close shire (dialectal), from Middle English schyre, schire, shire, shir, from Old English sċīr (“clear, bright; brilliant, gleaming, shining, splendid, resplendent; pure”), beside which existed Middle English skyr, from Old Norse skírr (“pure, bright, clear”), both from Proto-Germanic *skīriz (“pure, sheer”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₁y- (“luster, gloss, shadow”). Cognate with Danish skær, German schier (“sheer”), German Low German schier (“sheer, pure, unadulterated”; “completely, almost”), Dutch schier (“almost”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍂𐍃 (skeirs, “clear, lucid”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Albanian hir (“grace, beauty; goodwill”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
5 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,575)
How it is built
Same root, SHE · 3 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch.
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.
SHEER in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 29 boards so far. 34 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 12, 1 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 163, 30 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 12, 1 June 2026.
Built from these letters
SHEER starts with S and ends with R. Sorted, its letters read EEHRS - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. E appears more than once, including a double letter.
Same letters, different word
3 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start SHEER
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 12
Could you have found SHEER?
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 12 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER