The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
STERN
Definition of STERN
adjective
Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English stern, sterne, sturne, from Old English styrne (“stern, grave, strict, austere, hard, severe, cruel”), from Proto-Germanic *sturnijaz (“angry, astonished, shocked”), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“rigid, stiff”). Cognate with Scots stern (“bold, courageous, fierce, resolute”), Old High German stornēn (“to be astonished”), Dutch stuurs (“glum, austere”), Swedish stursk (“insolent”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
STERN in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 8 boards so far.
It first turned up on Day 34, 23 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 99, 27 August 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.
First found by a player on Day 35, 24 June 2026.
Built from these letters
STERN starts with S and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read ENRST - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
3 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start STERN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 34
Could you have found STERN?
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 34 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER