The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SHOVELS
Definition of SHOVELS
noun
plural 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
Word DNA
SHOVELS inherits its ancestry from its root, SHOVEL.
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 (980)
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.
SHOVELS in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 1 board so far. 10 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 146, 13 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First ever to find it
on Day 146, 13 October 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
SHOVELS starts with S and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read EHLOSSV - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. S appears more than once.
Words that start SHOVEL
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found SHOVELS?
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