The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
THING
Definition of THING
noun
That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English thing, from Old English þing, from Proto-West Germanic *þing, from Proto-Germanic *þingą. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Ding (“thing”), West Frisian ting, ding (“thing”), Dutch ding (“thing”), German Low German Ding (“thing”), German Ding (“thing”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ting (“thing”), Faroese ting (“parliament, assembly”), Icelandic þing (“congress, assembly”), Scots hing (“thing”). The word originally meant "assembly", then came to mean a specific issue discussed at such an assembly, and ultimately came to mean most broadly "an object". Compare Latin rēs, also meaning "legal matter", and same transition from Latin causa (“legal matter”) to "thing" in Romance languages. Modern use to refer to a Germanic assembly is likely influenced by cognates (from the same Proto-Germanic root) like Old Norse þing (“thing”), Danish ting, Swedish ting, and Old High German ding with this meaning.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
6th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
4.8%
of traced words share this origin (4,101)
branch · 22.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, THING · 7 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, Latin, Norwegian, Old Norse, Scots, Swedish.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
THING in OUTLIER
It has fitted 1 board so far. 24 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 127, 24 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 50 days.
First found by a player on Day 24, 13 June 2026.
Built from these letters
THING starts with T and ends with G. Sorted, its letters read GHINT - 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 THING
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found THING?
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 127 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER