The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SHOVEL
Definition of SHOVEL
noun
A hand tool with a handle, used for moving portions of material such as earth, snow, and grain from one place to another, with some forms also used for digging. In strict usage differentiated from a spade, which is designed solely for small-scale digging and incidental tasks such as chopping of small roots.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English schovele, schovel, showell, shole (> English dialectal shoul, shool), from Old English scofl (“shovel”), from Proto-Germanic *skuflō, *skūflō (“shovel”), equivalent to shove + -el (instrumental/agent suffix). Cognate with Scots shuffle, shule, shuil (“shovel”), Saterland Frisian Sköifel (“shovel”), West Frisian skoffel, schoffel (“hoe, spade, shovel”), Dutch schoffel (“spade, hoe”), Low German Schüfel, Schuffel (“shovel”), German Schaufel (“shovel”), Danish skovl (“shovel”), Faroese skupla (“shovel”), Icelandic skófla (“shovel”), Norwegian skyfle (“shovel”), skyffel (“shovel, hoe”), Swedish skyffel, skovel (“shovel”). Compare typologically Russian пешня (pešnja) (akin to пиха́ть (pixátʹ)), сово́к (sovók) (akin to сова́ть (sovátʹ)).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
7th
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
3.3%
of traced words share this origin (976)
branch · 22.3% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, SHOVEL · 5 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Norwegian, Russian, Scots, Swedish.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
SHOVEL in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 30 boards so far. 49 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 4, 25 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 146, 13 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First ever to find it
on Day 4, 25 May 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
SHOVEL starts with S and ends with L. Sorted, its letters read EHLOSV - 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 SHOVEL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 4
Could you have found SHOVEL?
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 4 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER