The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
UGLY
Definition of UGLY
adjective
Displeasing to the eye; aesthetically unpleasing.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Inherited from Middle English ugly, uggely, uglike, borrowed from Old Norse uggligr (“fearful, dreadful, horrible in appearance”), from uggr (“fear, apprehension, dread”) (possibly related to agg (“strife, hate”)), equivalent to ug + -ly. Cognate with Scots ugly, uglie, Icelandic ugglegur. Meaning softened to "very unpleasant to look at" around the late 14th century, and sense of "morally offensive" attested from around 1300. For the meaning development compare Bulgarian грозен (grozen) (< Proto-Slavic *grozьnъ), Russian стра́шный (strášnyj) (< Proto-Slavic *strašьnъ < *straxъ); Latin foedus (< Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyh₂-).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
UGLY in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 15 boards so far. 22 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 22, 11 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 117, 14 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 4 days.
First found by a player on Day 22, 11 June 2026.
Built from these letters
UGLY starts with U and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read GLUY - 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 UGLY
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 22
Could you have found UGLY?
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 22 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER