The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
SWAIN
Definition of SWAIN
noun
A young man or boy in service; a servant.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English swayn, swain, sweyn, swein, from Old English sweġen (attested also as personal name Swein, Sweġen), from Old Norse sveinn, from Proto-Germanic *swainaz (“relative, young man, servant”), from Proto-Indo-European *swé (“oneself; separate; apart”), thus properly one's own. Cognate with Danish svend (“hireling, young man”), Norwegian svein (“lad, young man, servant”) Icelandic sveinn (“boy, lad, servant”), Swedish sven (“swain, servant”), Low German Sween, dialectal German Schwein, Old English swān (“swineherd, lad”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
5 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
8.9%
of traced words share this origin (2,656)
How it is built
Same root, SWAIN · 1 relative in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish.
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.
SWAIN in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 87 boards so far. 391 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 7, 28 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 152, 19 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 1 day.
First ever to find it
on Day 7, 28 May 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
SWAIN starts with S and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read AINSW - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
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 SWAIN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 7
Could you have found SWAIN?
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 7 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER