Word of the day · Wednesday, October 28, 2026

helium

noun

Chemical element 2, a very light, colorless gas that does not burn and hardly reacts with anything.

Where it comes from

From Greek helios, sun. It was first detected in 1868 as an unexplained yellow line in the light of the sun during a solar eclipse, and only found on Earth in 1895.

Worth knowing

Helium is the second most common element in the universe but scarce on Earth, because it is light enough to escape into space. Most of it is collected from natural gas wells.

By the letters

• 6letters
• 3vowels (A E I O U)
• noneuncommon letters
• 6different letters

Playing it

HELIUM ends in -IUM like many element names. Words with three vowels spread through six letters are easier to finish than they look, since each vowel can anchor a different column.

Hooks

One letter added to make a new word (what is a hook), at the end: HELIUMS.

One letter away

Words you get by changing a single letter, the steps of a word ladder.

• telium

In Unsaid

HELIUM was word of the day number 10 in Unsaid, a falling-letter word game where every player gets the same word on the same date. As a word it scores 900 points. Under the current rules, spelling it as the word of the day is worth a bonus of 9,800 reading down or 7,350 reading across, before any streak. How the bonus works.