The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
WHEN
Definition of WHEN
adverb
At what time? At which time? Upon which occasion or circumstance? Used to introduce direct or indirect questions about time.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Where it comes from
From Middle English when(ne), whan(ne), from Old English hwonne, from Proto-West Germanic *hwannē, from Proto-West Germanic *hwan, from Proto-Germanic *hwan (“at what time, when”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷís (interrogative base). Cognate with Scots whan (“when”), Dutch wanneer (“when”), wan (“when”) and wen (“when, if”), Low German wannehr (“when”), wann (“when”) and wenn (“if, when”), German wann (“when”) and wenn (“when, if”), Gothic 𐍈𐌰𐌽 (ƕan, “when, how”), Latin quandō (“when”). More at who. Interjection sense: a playful misunderstanding of "say when" (i.e. say something / speak up when you want me to stop) as "say [the word] when".
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
14.2%
of traced words share this origin (11,506)
How it is built
Same root, WHEN · 1 relative in the game
Its etymology also names Dutch, Latin, Scots.
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.
WHEN in OUTLIER
It has fitted 1 board so far. 50 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 2, 23 May 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 160 days.
First found by a player on Day 28, 17 June 2026.
Built from these letters
WHEN starts with W and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read EHNW - 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 WHEN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Could you have found WHEN?
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 2 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER