Anagrams

a word, phrase, or sentence formed from another by rearranging its letters: “angel” is an anagram of “glean.”.
anagrams, (used with a singular verb) a game in which the players build words by transposing and, often, adding letters.
to form (the letters of a text) into a secret message by rearranging them.
to rearrange (the letters of a text) so as to discover a secret message.
contemporary examples

upon opening the warsaw anagrams, i thought: why am i reading another holocaust novel?
must read novels lucy scholes, john wilwol, randy rosenthal, nina maclaughlin august 3, 2011

historical examples

i think he wrote these letters for fun, as some people make puzzles, anagrams, or limericks!
the story of my life ellen terry

it is much like anagrams, this ordering of matter in an 109 essay.
english: composition and literature w. f. (william franklin) webster

empty the contents of a box of “anagrams” on a table so all the letters are in a pile face downward.
games for everybody may c. hofmann

the prefaces to this are signed with anagrams of george starkey’s name.
poems of henry vaughan, silurist, volume ii henry vaughan

i think he wrote these letters for fun, as some people make puzzles, anagrams, or limericks.
mcclure’s magazine, vol. xxxi, september 1908, no. 5 various

then that must have been a masquerade, that other time—all that mumbo-jumbo with the anagrams.
and then the town took off richard wilson

the italian p-ssion for devises, anagrams, emblems, and mottoes became the rage in paris.
illuminated m-n-scripts john w. bradley

numerous, and curious too, are the anagrams which my memory could furnish me.
notes and queries, vol. iv, number 110, december 6, 1851 various

there is even a reference to a bibliographer of books of anagrams.
a history of bibliographies of bibliographies archer taylor

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

transposition of letters in a word so as to form another, 1580s, from french anagramme or modern latin anagramma (16c.), both from greek anagrammatizein “transpose letters,” from ana- “up, back” (see ana-) + gramma (genitive grammatos) “letter” (see grammar). related: anagrammatical; anagrammatically.