anagram

[In Sw. anagram; Ger. ana gramm; Fr. anagram me; Sp. anagram a; Port. & Ital. an a gramma. From Gr. ἀνά ( απα ) = backwards, and γράμμα ( gramma ) = that which is drawn or written, a letter: γράφω ( graphō )= to grave, to write.] +1. The letters of any word read backwards. Thus in a satire on the Whig government under Lord Melbourne, which appeared in a provincial Tory paper, the political leader was described as Enruoblem, which was simply Melbourne spelled backwards. 2. The letters of any word or words transposed in their order so as to make another word, or more generally a short sentence. Thus the letters in the name of William Noy , Attorney-General to Charles I., who toiled hard in his vocation, become, when transposed, I moyl in law. Similarly Galen becomes by transposition angel, and Mary, army. The practice was not much in vogue among the Greeks and Romans, but it was common among the Jewish cabalists. Among European nations it first began to be extensively employed in the sixteenth century. Sometimes writers put not their own name but its anagram on their works; thus, Calvin put not Calvin us, but its anagram, Alcuinus, on the edition of his Institutes published at Strasburg in 1539. In certain cases mathematicians who had made discoveries for which they wished to claim priority without communicating their secret, gave forth its anagram instead of itself. This was done by Galileo, Huyghens, and Sir Isaac Newton. Sometimes these anagrams were intentionally so obscurely worded, and of such a length, as to render their solution almost impo ible. Thus Galileo announced his observations on Saturn: - Smaismrmilme poet a leumi bone nugttaviras = alti imum planet am tergeminum observavi (I have observed that the most distant planet is triple formed). Huyghens also announced his discovery of Saturn's ring in the following anagram:-a a a a a a a eccce d eeeee iiiiiii Illl mm nnnnnnnnn oooo pp qrrs ttttt uuuuu = annulo cingitur, tenui , plano nusquam coherente, ad ecliptic am incl in a to (it is surrounded by a slender ring, nowhere coherent, inclined to the ecliptic). "Though all her parts be not in th' usual place, She hath yet the anagrams of a good face; If we might put the letters but one way, In that lean dearth of words, what could we say?" Donne's Poeтя , р. 70. "Thy genius calls thee not to purchase faime In keen iambicks, but mild anagram . Dryden: Mac Flecknoe, v. 204.