Past Daily Challenge
September 4, 2026
Original clues, answers and explanations from this round. Historical versions may differ from today's catalog; that alone does not mean an answer was wrong. Recorded quality issues appear beside the affected questions. Your saved round and score are unchanged.
Question 1 · verb
excel or defeat in a game
Answer: outplay
The Knicks outplay the Lakers
Original choices and explanations
- practice
- avail oneself to
- outplay
- excel or defeat in a game
- forfeit
- lose (something) or lose the right to (something) by some error, offense, or crime
- referee
- evaluate professionally a colleague's work
Question 2 · adjective
threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
Answer: sinister
sinister storm clouds
Original choices and explanations
- malevolent
- wishing or appearing to wish evil to others; arising from intense ill will or hatred
- devious
- deviating from a straight course
- sinister
- threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
- nefarious
- extremely wicked
Question 3 · verb
fry briefly over high heat
Answer: saute
saute the onions
Original choices and explanations
- baste
- strike violently and repeatedly
- deglaze
- dissolve cooking juices or solid food in (a pan) by adding liquid and stirring
- braise
- cook in liquid
- saute
- fry briefly over high heat
Question 4 · adjective
showing modest reserve
Answer: diffident
she was diffident when offering a comment on the professor's lecture
Original choices and explanations
- diffident
- showing modest reserve
- timorous
- timid by nature or revealing timidity
- reticent
- cool and formal in manner
- bashful
- self-consciously timid
Question 5 · adverb
by open declaration
Answer: professedly
Susan Smith was professedly guilty of the murders
Original choices and explanations
- designedly
- with intention; in an intentional manner
- professedly
- by open declaration
- laudably
- in an admirable manner
- confessedly
- as acknowledged
Definitions and examples adapted from Princeton WordNet and the Open English WordNet team’s 2025 data. Lexifour rewrites clues and explanations and blanks example sentences; this archive preserves the game’s original wording and choice order. License and attribution notices; Open English WordNet development is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Reference: McCrae, Rademaker, Bond, Rudnicka, and Fellbaum (2019), English WordNet 2019 – An Open-Source WordNet for English.
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