What Are Anagrams?  Subscribe E-mail  Words Bookshop  Link to this Site  Take Our Survey  Add to Favorites

BORED? Play our free word gamesINTERACTIVE HANGMAN

An anagram is a rearrangement of the letters in either a word or a phrase (using each letter exactly once in the word or phrase created).

Ideally the anagram created relates in some (perhaps humorous) way to the original word or phrase. Such anagrams are described as cognate. The best anagrams are grammatically correct and use techniques such as abbreviating and to 'n' only minimally.

The anagrams on this site are mainly humorous cognate anagrams. Generally the best ones are of the names of famous people or institutions, particularly those with relevance to recent major events in the news. Other witty anagrams include definitions (e.g. A shoplifter Has to pilfer1), pairs of questions and answers where each is an anagram of the other (e.g. Eleven plus two? Twelve plus one2) and completed sentences (e.g. Circumstantial evidence can ruin a selected victim).

You can find anagrams of your name (or any other text you choose) using Anagram Genius, the only intelligent software for producing anagrams. It is available for you to order and download instantly!

Several words are used to describe different varieties of anagrams, particularly amongst the online anagramming community. Many of these words are not generally accepted words that you will find in dictionaries:

ambigram3An anagram which is ambiguously opposite to the original phrase, such as The Nuclear Regulatory Commission = your rules clone atomic nightmares4.
anigram5 or
animagram6
An animation (usually in a computer format) showing the letters of a word or phrase moving as they rearrange to form an anagram.
antigram7An anagram which is antonymous of the original phrase, such as violence = nice love.
pairagramA transposed couplet in which the anagrams are linked in meaning, or form a sentence when juxtaposed. Examples are Elvis = lives8 and married = admirer9.
pangramNot really a variety of anagram, but included here because of the similarity in name and meaning. So called perfect pangrams are anagrams of the alphabet, e.g. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz = Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q.
spamagram10A term used exclusively in the newsgroup alt.anagrams. Those who spam the newsgroup (i.e. post irrelevant messages) will find their words anagrammed by alt.anagrams regulars. The resulting anagrams are termed spamagrams.
synanagram11Single words that are anagrams of other single words, such as angered = enraged12.
trianagramAlso called triplets, these are three-way anagrams such as mastering = emigrants = streaming.


Footnotes:
  1. by Irene Fullarton of New Jersey, 1908.
  2. by Melvin O. Wellman of Michigan, 1948.
  3. "ambigram" was first coined by Sibyl (Judith Bagai), former editor of "The Enigma", according to O. V. Michaelsen in "Words At Play; Quips, Quirks & Oddities".
  4. by Jed Martinez of Florida, 1993.
  5. "anigram" was first coined by Tom Myers.
  6. "animagram" was first coined by Richard Brodie.
  7. "antigram" was first coined by Sans Souci in "Ardmore Puzzler", Sept. 22, 1900, according to O. V. Michaelsen in "Words At Play; Quips, Quirks & Oddities".
  8. by David N. Axford.
  9. by Morton L. Mitchell of Missouri, 1928.
  10. "spamagram" was first coined by Haynes Lee in 1997 in a posting to the newsgroups alt.anagrams, news.admin.net-abuse.email, and alt.humor.net-abuse.
  11. "synanagram" was first coined by Murray R. Pearce of North Dakota in "Word Ways; The Journal of Recreational Linguistics", Aug. 1971, according to O. V. Michaelsen in "Words At Play; Quips, Quirks & Oddities".
  12. by William A. Moore, Jr, of Illinois, 1899.

Do you know anyone else who would enjoy this? Email this page to a friend.
Also: Sign up for our free web site updates here.

[Top of Page] [Home Page] ©1999-2024 Fun-with-words.com
Recommended Book:
Biblia Anagrammatica or the Anagrammatic...
Buy this book at Amazon
View all in this category:
Anagrams Books
Hundreds more books at:
Wordplay Book Store




 
Wild Madagascar on BBC Two
with David Attenborough