An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place. Someone who creates anagrams is called an anagrammatist. The original word or phrase is known as the subject of the anagram.

Any word or phrase that exactly reproduces the letters in another order is an anagram. Skill in creating an anagram is permutation to produce phrases which, in some way, reflect or comment on the subject. Such an anagram may be a synonym or antonym of its subject, a parody, a criticism, or praise; e.g. George Bush = He bugs Gore.; Madonna Louise Ciccone = Occasional nude income; William Shakespeare = I am a weakish speller, Roger Meddows-Taylor = Great words or melody. Another goal of anagrammatists is to produce an anagram which becomes widely known: there are famous or classic anagrams, like "est vir qui adest" below, which was cited as the example in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language.

Assumptions

History of anagrams

The construction of anagrams is an amusement of great antiquity. They were popular throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, for example with the poet and composer Guillaume de Machaut, and go back at least to the Greek poet Lycophron, in the third century BCE.

Influence of Latin

As a literary game when Latin was the common property of the literate, Latin anagrams were prominent: two examples are the change of "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum" (Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord 1 with you) into "Virgo serena, pia, munda et immaculata" (Serene virgin, pious, clean and spotless), and the anagrammatic answer to Pilate's question, "Quid est veritas?" (What is truth?), namely, "Est vir qui adest" (It is the man who is here). The origins of these are not documented. Latin continued to influence letter values (such as I = J, U = V and W = VV).

Early modern period

When it comes to the 17th century and anagrams in English or other languages, there is a great deal of documented evidence of learned interest. The lawyer Thomas Egerton was praised through the anagram gestat honorem; the physician George Ent took the anagrammatic motto genio surget, which requires his first name as "Georgius". James I's courtiers discovered in "James Stuart" "a just master", and converted "Charles James Stuart" into "Claims Arthur's seat" (even at that point in time, the letters I and J were more-or-less interchangeable). Walter Quin, tutor to the future Charles I, worked hard on multilingual anagrams on the name of father James. A notorious murder scandal, the Overbury case, threw up two imperfect anagrams that were aided by typically loose spelling and were recorded by Simonds D'Ewes: 'Francis Howard' (for Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset, her maiden name spelled in a variant) became Car findes a whore, with the letters E hardly counted, and the victim Thomas Overbury, as 'Thomas Overburie', was written as O! O! a busie murther, with a V counted as U.