The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
TOUCH
Definition of TOUCH
verb
Primarily physical senses. To make physical contact with; to bring the hand, finger or other part of the body into contact with.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English touchen, tochen, from Old French tochier (“to touch”) (whence Modern French toucher; compare French doublet toquer (“to offend, bother, harass”)), from Vulgar Latin *tuccō (“to knock, strike, offend”), from Frankish *tukkōn (“to knock, strike, touch”), from Proto-Germanic *tukkōną (“to tug, grab, grasp”), from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to draw, pull, lead”). Largely displaced native Middle English rinen, from Old English hrīnan (whence Modern English rine). Doublet of tuck. Cognate with Old High German zochhōn, zuhhōn (“to grasp, take, seize, snatch”) (whence German zucken (“to jerk, flinch”)), German Low German tucken, tocken (“to fidget, twitch, pull up, entice, throb, knock, repeatedly tap”), Middle Dutch tocken, tucken (“to touch, entice”) (whence Dutch tokkelen (“to strum, pluck”)), Old English tucian, tūcian (“to disturb, mistreat”) (whence Modern English tuck). Compare also Old High German tokkōn, tockōn (“to abut, collide”). More at tuck. Via Proto-Indo-European *dewk- cognate with English tie, tow, tug, team, Latin dūcō, dux.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
7 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
6th
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
4.2%
of traced words share this origin (1,213)
branch · 22.3% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, TOUCH · 4 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Middle Dutch.
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
TOUCH in OUTLIER
It has fitted 1 board so far. 53 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 111, 8 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 35 days.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
TOUCH starts with T and ends with H. Sorted, its letters read CHOTU - 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 TOUCH
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found TOUCH?
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 111 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER