The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
WAITER
Definition of WAITER
noun
A male or female attendant who serves customers at their tables in a restaurant, café or similar.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From late 14th century Middle English waiter, wayter (“attendant, watchman”). By surface analysis, wait + -er. Sense of "servant who waits at tables" is from late 15th century, originally in reference to household servants; in reference to inns, eating houses, etc., it is attested from 1660s. Feminine form waitress first recorded 1834. The London Stock Exchange sense harks back to the early days of trading in coffee-shops.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
- Middle English
- English
One recorded step before English.
Deepest traced root
4th
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
7.6%
of traced words share this origin (2,319)
branch · 22.3% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, WAIT · 5 relatives in the game
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
WAITER in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 32 boards so far. 56 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 16, 5 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 154, 21 October 2026. It was on the latest finished board.
First found by a player on Day 16, 5 June 2026.
Built from these letters
WAITER starts with W and ends with R. Sorted, its letters read AEIRTW - 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 WAITER
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 16
Could you have found WAITER?
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 16 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER