The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
WAINS
Definition of WAINS
noun
plural of wain
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Another sense
WAINS carries a second meaning.
noun
Plural form of wain.
Word DNA
WAINS inherits its ancestry from its root, WAIN.
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
8.8%
of traced words share this origin (2,662)
How it is built
Same root, WAIN · 3 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Danish, Middle Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish.
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
WAINS in a sentence
“The resentment waxes and wains I think … comes and goes … as does the guilt.”
The Amazing Survivor Race Challenge: Parenting Edition | Her Bad Mother, 2009
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
WAINS in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 60 boards so far. 129 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 13, 2 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 152, 19 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.
First found by a player on Day 13, 2 June 2026.
Built from these letters
WAINS starts with W and ends with S. Sorted, its letters read AINSW - 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 WAINS
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 13
Could you have found WAINS?
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 13 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER