The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
TILE
Definition of TILE
noun
A regularly-shaped slab of clay or other material, affixed to cover or decorate a surface, as in a roof-tile, glazed tile, stove tile, carpet tile, etc.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English tile, tyl, tigel, tiȝel, teȝele, from Old English tiġele, tieġle, tiġle (“tile, brick”), from Proto-West Germanic *tigulā (“tile, brick”), from Proto-Germanic *tigulǭ (“tile, brick”), from Latin tēgula, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“to cover”). Doublet of tegula. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Tichel (“tile”), Dutch tichel (“brick”), tegel (“tile”), German Ziegel (“brick, roof tile”), Luxembourgish Zill (“brick, tile”), Danish tegl (“brick”), Faroese tigul (“tile”), Icelandic tigl (“brick, tile”), Norwegian Nynorsk tegl (“brick, roof tile”), Swedish tegel (“brick, tile”), Asturian teya (“tile”), Catalan teula (“tile”), French tuile (“tile”), Galician telha, tella (“roof tile”), Italian tegola (“roof tile”), Mirandese teilha (“roof tile”), Portuguese telha (“roof tile”), Spanish teja (“roof tile”), Belarusian цэ́гла (céhla, “brick”), Czech cihla (“brick”), Polish cegła (“brick”), Serbo-Croatian cígla (“brick”), Ukrainian це́гла (céhla, “brick”), Finnish tiili (“brick, tile”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
5 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, TILE · 5 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Catalan, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Icelandic, Italian and 5 more.
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.
TILE in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 21 boards so far. 27 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 28, 17 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 173, 9 November 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 4 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 28, 17 June 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
TILE starts with T and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read EILT - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Same letters, different word
2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start TILE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 28
Could you have found TILE?
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 28 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER