The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
WERE
Definition of WERE
verb
second-person singular simple past indicative of be
BE
symbol
ISO 639-1 language code for Belarusian.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
Inherited from Middle English were, weren, from Old English wǣre, wǣron, wǣren, from Proto-West Germanic *wāʀun, *wāʀīn, from Proto-Germanic *wēzun, *wēzīn, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes-. More at was.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
2nd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
14.4%
of traced words share this origin (11,191)
How it is built
Every Proto-Indo-European word → · The Word DNA of OUTLIER →
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
WERE in OUTLIER
It has fitted 1 board so far. 21 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 151, 18 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 5 days.
First found by a player on Day 7, 28 May 2026.
Built from these letters
WERE starts with W and ends with E. Sorted, its letters read EERW - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. E appears more than once.
Same letters, different word
2 other words use exactly these letters. Worth knowing at the board: an anagram fits a grid the same way.
Words that start WERE
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found WERE?
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 151 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER