anagram

Everyday

1. An anagram is a word or phrase made by mixing up all the letters of another word or phrase: «listen» is an anagram of «silent». tree →
2. An anagram puzzle asks you to rearrange the letters to find a hidden word. tree →

In the lessons

In English lessons and olympiad puzzles, anagrams train spelling and thinking: «earth» → «heart», «dormitory» → «dirty room». Crosswords and word games use them. In maths, the number of ways to arrange letters is counted with permutations: «cat» has 3 × 2 × 1 = 6 arrangements. Phrases: «solve the anagram», «an anagram of», «anagram puzzle».

Examples

• «Listen» is an anagram of «silent». tree →
• Can you find an anagram of «stop»? Pots, spot, tops, post, opts. tree →
• The detective solved the anagram and found the secret name. tree →
• «Dormitory» is an anagram of «dirty room». tree →
• The crossword clue was an anagram. tree →
• «Act» and «cat» are anagrams of each other. tree →

Note

Use «an»: «an anagram». A real anagram uses every letter exactly once. Maths: a word with n different letters can be arranged in n × (n−1) × … × 1 ways, but only a few of them are real words. Not the same as a palindrome (reads the same backwards: «level»).