The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
VIRUS
Definition of VIRUS
noun
A submicroscopic, non-cellular structure that consists of a core of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein coat, that requires a living host cell to replicate, and that sometimes causes disease in the host organism (such agents are often classed as nonliving infectious particles and less often as microorganisms).
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English virus, from Latin vīrus (“poison, slime, venom”), via rhotacism from Proto-Italic *weizos, from Proto-Indo-European *wisós (“fluidity, slime, poison”). First use in the computer context by David Gerrold in his 1972 book When HARLIE Was One.
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.
VIRUS in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 23 boards so far. 35 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 8, 29 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 109, 6 September 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 8, 29 May 2026.
Built from these letters
VIRUS starts with V and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read IRSUV - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that start VIRUS
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 8
Could you have found VIRUS?
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 8 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER