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

SHOULD

/ʃəd/6 letters

Definition of SHOULD

verb

simple past of shall

Wiktionary · CC BY-SA

Where it comes from

From Middle English scholde, from Old English sċolde, first and third person preterite form of sċulan (“should,” “have to,” “to owe”), the ancestor of English shall. By surface analysis, shall + -ed. Cognate with German sollte, Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌿𐌻𐌳𐌰 (skulda), Swedish skulle. Related to Middle English shild and shildy. The loss of /l/ in this word is probably due to weak stress, as in would and could (though in the latter, the /l/ was due to the analogy of the former two).

Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).

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.

SHOULD in OUTLIER

It has fitted 1 board so far. 18 players have found it across Outlier's history.

Day 1Day 97
Its one board, across 97 finished boards · taller bars are busier boards
1
Boards it fitted
76
First board
21
Days since seen

It first turned up on Day 76, 4 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 21 days.

First ever to find it

eileenn701

on Day 12, 1 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers

Built from these letters

SHOULD
6
Letters
2
Vowels
4
Consonants
6
Different letters
2
Longest consonant run
2
Longest vowel run

SHOULD starts with S and ends with D. Sorted, its letters read DHLOSU - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.

Words that start SHOULD

Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.

SHOULDERSHOULDSTSHOULDERSSHOULDESTSHOULDEREDSHOULDERING

Could you have found SHOULD?

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

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