The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
VARIETY
Definition of VARIETY
noun
A deviation or difference. A specific variation of something. An animal or plant (or a group of such animals or plants) with characteristics causing it to differ from other animals or plants of the same species; a strain or cultivar. A rank in a taxonomic classification below species and (if present) subspecies, and above form; hence, an organism of that rank.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle French varieté (“variety”) (modern French variété (“variety; genre, type”)) or directly from its etymon Latin varietās (“difference; diversity, variety”) + English -ty (suffix forming abstract nouns from adjectives); by surface analysis, various + -ety. Varietās is derived from varius (“different, diverse, various; variegated”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂- (“to abandon; to give out; to leave”)) + -tās (suffix forming feminine abstract nouns indicating a state of being). The English word displaced the native Old English mislīcnes. Sense 1.3.2 (“total number of distinct states of a system; logarithm to the base 2 of the total number of distinct states of a system”) was coined by the English psychiatrist William Ross Ashby (1903–1972) in his work An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956).
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.
VARIETY in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 47 boards so far. 122 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 4, 25 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 102, 30 August 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First ever to find it
on Day 4, 25 May 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
VARIETY starts with V and ends with Y. Sorted, its letters read AEIRTVY - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start VARIET
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 4
Could you have found VARIETY?
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 4 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER