The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.

SHELLS

/ʃɛlz/6 letters

Definition of SHELLS

noun

plural of shell

SHELL

noun

A hard external covering of an animal. The calcareous or chitinous external covering of mollusks, crustaceans, and some other invertebrates.

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Word DNA

SHELLS inherits its ancestry from its root, SHELL.

Line of descent

  1. Proto-Indo-European
  2. Proto-Germanic
  3. Old English
  4. Middle English
  5. English

4 recorded generations before English.

Proto-Indo-European

Deepest traced root

2nd

of 59 source languages in OUTLIER

14.2%

of traced words share this origin (11,866)

How it is built

noun1 syllable

Same root, SHELL · 9 relatives in the game

Its etymology also names Ancient Greek, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, Icelandic, Irish, Italian and 7 more.

Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →

Rarity score
Withheld
Revealed only in play
Tier
Withheld
Find it yourself

OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.

SHELLS in OUTLIER

Players have found it on 2 boards so far.

Day 1Day 170
Its 2 boards, across 170 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
2
Boards found on
146
First board
153
Latest board
7
Longest gap, days

It first turned up on Day 146, 13 October 2026. The most recent board was Day 153, 20 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 17 days.

First found by a player on Day 146, 13 October 2026.

Built from these letters

SHELLS
6
Letters
1
Vowels
5
Consonants
4
Different letters
3
Longest consonant run
1
Longest vowel run

SHELLS starts with S and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read EHLLSS - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. S and L appear more than once, including a double letter.

Words that start SHELLS

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

SHELLSHOCKSHELLSHOCKSSHELLSHOCKED

Could you have found SHELLS?

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 146 - and most players walked straight past it.

Play today's OUTLIER