The rare daily word game sweeping the globe. Find what's hidden in plain sight.
WIZEN
Definition of WIZEN
adjective
Wizened; withered; lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness.
Wiktionary · CC BY-SA
Other senses
WIZEN carries 4 further meanings.
intransitive verb
To dry up; wither or shrivel.
intransitive verb
To cause to wither, shrivel, or dry up.
adjective
Shriveled or dried up; withered.
Hard, dry, and shriveled; withered.
Where it comes from
Inherited from Middle English wisenen, from Old English wisnian, weosnian, from Proto-West Germanic *wisnōn, from Proto-Germanic *wisnōną, from Proto-Germanic *wesaną (“to consume”). Cognate with Icelandic visna, Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐍅𐌹𐍃𐌰𐌽 (frawisan, “to squander through feasting”).
Etymology via Wiktionary (CC BY-SA).
Word DNA
Line of descent
3 recorded generations before English.
Deepest traced root
7th
of 58 source languages in OUTLIER
3.4%
of traced words share this origin (958)
branch · 22.6% of traced words
How it is built
Same root, WIZEN · 2 relatives in the game
Its etymology also names Icelandic.
WIZEN in a sentence
“In fact I think with the world the way it is now and the interaction now possible because of technology we can experience and learn a lot more than people did in the past, which I believe has the ability to change and wizen a person much quicker than was possible in the not so distant past.”
Revolution and Evolution, Part 2 (The Dean Koontz edition) | Johnny B. Truant, 2010
OUTLIER scores every word on how unusual it is, and that number is not published. Working it out at the board is the game.
WIZEN in OUTLIER
Players have found it on 10 boards so far. 95 players have found it across Outlier's history.
It first turned up on Day 11, 31 May 2026. The most recent board was Day 125, 22 September 2026. Nobody has seen it on a board for 15 days.
First ever to find it
on Day 11, 31 May 2026 - before anyone else in Outlier's history. See the Pioneers
Built from these letters
WIZEN starts with W and ends with N. Sorted, its letters read EINWZ - the shape to hunt for when the grid is scrambled. No letter is used twice, which makes it an isogram. It uses Z - among the least common letters in written English.
Words that mean much the same
Near-synonyms of WIZEN. Not interchangeable at the board - the grid decides that - but close in meaning.
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 WIZEN
Its neighbours in the OUTLIER dictionary - shortest first.
Also seen on Day 11
Could you have found WIZEN?
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 11 - and most players walked straight past it.
Play today's OUTLIER