The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
TEAR
Definition of TEAR
verb
To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English teren, from Old English teran (“to tear, lacerate”), from Proto-Germanic *teraną (“to tear, tear apart, rip”), from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to tear, tear apart”). Cognate with Scots tere, teir, tair (“to rend, lacerate, wound, rip, tear out”), Dutch teren (“to eliminate, efface, live, survive by consumption”), German zehren (“to consume, misuse”), German zerren (“to tug, rip, tear”), Danish tære (“to consume”), Swedish tära (“to fret, consume, deplete, use up”), Icelandic tæra (“to clear, corrode”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Ancient Greek δέρω (dérō, “to skin”), Albanian ther (“to slay, skin, pierce”). Doublet of tire.
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 (11,700)
How it is built
Same root, TEAR · 8 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Ancient Greek, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Scots, 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.
TEAR in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 20 boards so far. 16 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 1, 22 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 166, 2 November 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 3, 24 May 2026.
Built from these letters
TEAR starts with T and ends with R. Sorted, its letters read AERT - 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 TEAR
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 1
Could you have found TEAR?
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 1 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER