anagram

American  

[an-uh-gram] / ˈæn əˌgræm /

noun

• anagrams
  plural

1. a word, phrase, or sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters.

   “Angel” is an anagram of “glean.”

2. (used with a singular verb) anagrams, a game in which the players build words by transposing and, often, adding letters.

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verb (used with object)

anagrammed, anagramming

1. to form (the letters of a text) into a secret message by rearranging them.

2. to rearrange (the letters of a text) so as to discover a secret message.

anagram British  

/ ˈænəˌɡræm, ˌænəɡrəˈmætɪk /

noun

1. a word or phrase the letters of which can be rearranged into another word or phrase

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• anagrammatic
  adjective
• anagrammatical
  adjective
• anagrammatically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• anagrams
  plural

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.”

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

anagram anagrams anagrammed anagramming

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

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 pair borrowed the store’s name, an anagram of “nowhere,” from Samuel Butler’s 1872 satirical novel of the same name, which centered on a utopia where illness is considered a crime.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 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

I shift the words around, trying to form a sentence that makes sense, and when that fails, I move the letters around to see if each one might be an anagram for something else.

From "Legend" by Marie Lu

The theme-and-variations format is enchanting, allowing Sondheim, the great puzzler, to treat songs almost as anagrams.

From New York Times ● Oct. 22, 2023

This season was particularly intense with anagrams hidden in board games and other places.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 6, 2023

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

Sometimes they made true anagrams, rearranging all the letters without repeating any; those entries are marked below.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 11, 2021

“Imagine a situation” was a game she'd invented where Colin found the anagrams and then Katherine imagined an anagrammatic situation.

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

To pass the time, he anagrammed her sprawling name: Katherine Mutsensberger.

From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green

He anagrammed “yrs forever” until he found one he liked: sorry fever.

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 George Gilfillan

“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

And he was busy anagramming anything odd—any odd night, handy dog tin, doing thy DNA—when Colin did his DNA proud: he stumbled on a molehill and fell.

From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green

For one thing, turning concepts into numbers was a sort of anagramming to which he was unaccustomed.

From "An Abundance of Katherines" by John Green