The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
WHELM
Definition of WHELM
verb
To bury, to cover; to engulf, to submerge.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
WHELM carries 4 further meanings.
transitive verb
To cover with water; submerge.
transitive verb
To overwhelm.
To throw over so as to cover.
To engulf; submerge; cover by immersion in something that envelops on all sides; overwhelm.
Where it comes from
From Middle English whelmen (“to turn over, capsize; to invert, turn upside down”), perhaps from Old English *hwealmnian, a variant of *hwealfnian, from hwealf (“arched, concave, vaulted; an arched or vaulted ceiling”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwalb, from Proto-Germanic *hwalbą (“arch, vault”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelp- (“to curve”). The English word is cognate with Dutch welven (“to arch”), Old Saxon bihwelvian (“to cover, hide”), German wölben (“to bend, curve, arch”), Icelandic hvelfa (“to overturn”), German Walm (“a vaulted roof”), Icelandic hvolf (“vaulted ceiling”), Ancient Greek κόλπος (kólpos, “bosom, hollow, gulf”). The noun is derived from the verb.
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
4 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
3rd
of 59 source languages in OUTLIER
8.9%
of traced words share this origin (2,656)
How it is built
Same root, WHELM · 3 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Ancient Greek, Dutch, Icelandic.
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.
WHELM in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 55 boards so far. 126 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 22, 11 June 2026. The most recent board was Day 150, 17 October 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 2 days.
First found by a player on Day 22, 11 June 2026.
Built from these letters
WHELM starts with W and ends with M. Sorted, its letters read EHLMW - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram.
Words that mean much the same
Near-synonyms of WHELM. Not interchangeable at the board - the grid decides that - but close in meaning.
Words that start WHELM
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 22
Could you have found WHELM?
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 22 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER