The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SKIVE
Definition of SKIVE
verb
To avoid one's lessons or work ; shirk.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
SKIVE carries 4 further meanings.
intransitive verb
To avoid work or duty; shirk.
transitive verb
To cut thin layers off (leather or rubber, for example); pare.
To turn up the eyes.
noun
In gem-cutting, same as diamond-wheel .
Where it comes from
Probably from French esquiver (“slink away”), from Middle French esquiver (“to escape”), from Spanish esquivar (“to avoid, reject, elude”), from esquivo (“contemptuous, loathsome”), itself from Old French eschiver, of East Germanic origin, from Gothic *𐍃𐌺𐌹𐌿𐌷𐍃 (*skiuhs, “afraid, barefaced”), from Proto-Germanic *skeuhaz (“afraid, frightened”). Cognate with English shy, eschew.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
7th
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
3.4%
of traced words share this origin (969)
branch · 22.4% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, SKIVE · 2 relatives in the game
SKIVE in a sentence
“After his family moved from a home close to Parkhead to a flat near Ibrox, Dalglish befriended a young Rangers player called Alex Miller and it was not unknown for him to skive off school in order to hang around the club before cadging favours from a senior pro.”
Kenny Dalglish expects respect but no free ride from Sir Alex Ferguson, 2011
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
SKIVE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 39 boards so far. 204 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 26, 15 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 139, 6 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.
First found by a player on Day 26, 15 June 2026.
Built from these letters
SKIVE starts with S and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read EIKSV - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that mean much the same
Near-synonyms of SKIVE. Not interchangeable at the board - the grid decides that - but close in meaning.
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 SKIVE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 26
Could you have found SKIVE?
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 26 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER