The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SPARROW
Definition of SPARROW
noun
The house sparrow, Passer domesticus; a small bird with a short bill, and brown, white and gray feathers.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English sparewe, sparowe, sparu, sparwe, spearewe, sperrewe, from Old English spearwa, from Proto-West Germanic *sparwō, from Proto-Germanic *sparwô, from Proto-Indo-European *spḗr (“sparrow”). Cognate with Yola sparrowe (“sparrow”), North Frisian sparag, spåri (“sparrow”), Saterland Frisian Spräie (“sparrow”), Alemannic German and Luxembourgish Spatz (“sparrow”), Dutch spreeuw (“starling”), German Spatz, Sperling (“sparrow”), Vilamovian śpielik, śpjelik, śpjeliḱ (“sparrow”), Yiddish שפּערל (shperl, “sparrow”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål spurv (“sparrow”), Faroese spurvur (“sparrow”), Norwegian Nynorsk sporv (“sparrow”), Swedish sparv (“sparrow”), Gothic 𐍃𐍀𐌰𐍂𐍅𐌰 (sparwa, “sparrow”); also Latin parra (“bird of ill omen”), Ancient Greek ψάρ (psár), ψήρ (psḗr, “starling”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
8.8%
of traced words share this origin (2,505)
How it is built
Same root, SPARROW · 1 relative in the game
Its etymology also names Ancient Greek, Danish, Dutch, Latin, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish.
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
SPARROW in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 1 board so far.
It first turned up on Day 138, 5 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 138, 5 October 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
SPARROW starts with S and ends with W. Sorted, its letters read AOPRRSW - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. R appears more than once, including a double letter.
Words that start SPARRO
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found SPARROW?
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 138 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER