The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
VALENCES
Definition of VALENCES
noun
plural of valence
noun
The combining capacity of an atom, functional group, or radical determined by the number of atoms of hydrogen with which it will unite, or the number of electrons that it will gain, lose, or share when it combines with other atoms, etc.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Another sense
VALENCES carries a second meaning.
noun
Plural form of valence.
Word DNA
VALENCES inherits its ancestry from its root, VALENCE.
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
8.9%
of traced words share this origin (2,625)
How it is built
Same root, VALENCE · 1 relative in the game
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
VALENCES in a sentence
“This stereochemical concept rests on the original suggestion by van't Hoff of the tetrahedral arrangement of the four valences of the carbon atom (see Section 2), and most organic molecules exist in two or more stable conformations.”
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The Development of Modern Chemistry, 2010
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
VALENCES in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 48 boards so far. 153 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 25, 14 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 150, 17 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 25, 14 June 2026.
Built from these letters
VALENCES starts with V and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read ACEELNSV - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. E appears more than once.
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 VALENC
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 25
Could you have found VALENCES?
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 25 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER