anagram
Americannoun
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a word, phrase, or sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters.
“Angel” is an anagram of “glean.”
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(used with a singular verb) anagrams, a game in which the players build words by transposing and, often, adding letters.
verb (used with object)
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to form (the letters of a text) into a secret message by rearranging them.
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to rearrange (the letters of a text) so as to discover a secret message.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of anagram
First recorded in 1580–90; probably from Middle French anagramme, from New Latin anagramma; equivalent to ana- + -gram 1
Explanation
An anagram is a word or phrase that's formed by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase. For example, the letters that make up “A decimal point” can be turned into the anagram “I’m a dot in place.” People mainly make anagrams just for fun, but sometimes they’re used as pseudonyms or codes. For example, the French writer Francois Rabelais published his controversial first book under Alcofribas Nasier, an anagram of his name. The most entertaining anagrams are the ones where the rearranged letters make some sort of comment on the original. “Dormitory” turns into the anagram “dirty room,” and “snooze alarms” can be rearranged into “Alas! No more Zs.”
Vocabulary lists containing anagram
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Rollins similarly championed Black pride on "Airegin," another of his best-known pieces which is rigorously quick-paced -- and whose title is an anagram for Nigeria.
From Barron's ● May 26, 2026
My full name is David Lee Roth — it’s an anagram.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 11, 2026
The suit claims that Energy Transfer’s litigation violated Greenpeace International’s rights under the European Union’s 2024 anti-Slapp law, an anagram for strategic litigation against public participation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
The name turned out to be an anagram of Mr. Navarro’s surname and he described it as a “Hitchcockian writing device” that became an inside joke with himself.
From New York Times ● Dec. 4, 2024
Emily played around with rearranging the letters, thinking maybe it was an anagram.
From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
These are wild anagrams for a stain on satin, giving material heft to ephemeral language.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 7, 2024
They found that subjects awakened from REM sleep solved 32% more anagrams than subjects who were interrupted during non-REM sleep.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 27, 2023
Recognizing that trait in each other, Seth and Kimberly bond over their parallel irregularities: his obsession with anagrams and her genetically scrambled codons.
From New York Times ● Dec. 8, 2021
Carroll, whose real name was Charles Dodgson, famously loved wordplay such as anagrams.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2021
But she left anyway, and he was alone in his room, searching out anagrams for mymissingpiece in a vain attempt to fall asleep.
From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green
Although Hanbury initially wanted each name to appear in a coherent anagrammed form first, he gave that up since they were onscreen too briefly to be read that way.
From Salon ● Nov. 14, 2022
Although E.H.O'R. can be anagrammed as HERO, the character is doubtful of its gender.
From Time Magazine Archive
He anagrammed “yrs forever” until he found one he liked: sorry fever.
From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green
To pass the time, he anagrammed her sprawling name: Katherine Mutsensberger.
From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green
Some of these anagrammed his name, Benlowes, into Benevolus; to verify which, he spent his whole estate upon them.—P.
From The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope, Volume 2 by Gilfillan, George
“It is intellectual,” Kagan said of the game, “it is mathematic, it is logic, it is strategy, it is word knowledge, it is anagramming and it’s luck.”
From Washington Post ● Aug. 1, 2022
CEILIDHS, the plural of a word meaning an Irish or Scottish party, isn’t exactly common, but it’s still a bit surprising Mackay missed it, given the best players’ extensive word knowledge and fast-twitch anagramming skills.
From Slate ● May 23, 2016
“We’ve done it as a labor of love,” César del Solar, who developed the anagramming website Aerolith, told me.
From Slate ● Sep. 30, 2014
He would stay special, use his talent to do something more interesting and important than anagramming and translating Latin.
From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green
“Maybe that’s why she dumped you. Always anagramming, never listening.”
From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
