The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
STIFF
Definition of STIFF
adjective
Rigid; hard to bend; inflexible.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English stiff, stiffe, stif, from Old English stīf, from Proto-West Germanic *stīf, from Proto-Germanic *stīfaz, from Proto-Indo-European *steypós. See also West Frisian stiif, Dutch stijf, Norwegian Bokmål stiv, German steif; also Latin stīpes, stīpō, from which English stevedore. The expected Modern English form would be /staɪf/; /stɪf/ is probably originally from compounds such as stiffly, where the vowel was shortened before a consonant cluster.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (12,281)
How it is built
Same root, STIFF · 8 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Dutch, Latin, Norwegian.
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.
STIFF in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 2 boards so far.
It first turned up on Day 118, 15 September 2026. The most recent board was Day 159, 26 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 18 days.
First found by a player on Day 118, 15 September 2026.
Built from these letters
STIFF starts with S and ends with F. Sorted, its letters read FFIST - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. F appears more than once, including a double letter.
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 STIFF
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found STIFF?
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 118 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER