The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
STANCE
Definition of STANCE
noun
The manner, pose, or posture in which one stands.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English staunce (“place to stand; battle station; position; standing in society; circumstance, situation; stanchion”), from Old French estance (“predicament; situation; sojourn, stay”) (compare modern French stance (“stanza; position one stands in when golfing”)), from Italian stanza (“room, standing place; stanza”), from Vulgar Latin *stantia, from Latin stō (“to stand; to remain, stay”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand (up)”). The word is cognate with Spanish estante (“shelf”) and a doublet of stanza. The verb is derived from the noun. Compare typologically Czech postoj (“stance (the way of holding a body); stance (point of view)”) (cognate via PIE). Also see position, posture.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
5 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,575)
How it is built
Same root, STANCE · 2 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Czech, Spanish.
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.
STANCE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 11 boards so far. 17 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 35, 24 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 159, 26 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 5 days.
First found by a player on Day 35, 24 June 2026.
Built from these letters
STANCE starts with S and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read ACENST - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
5 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Also seen on Day 35
Could you have found STANCE?
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 35 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER