A blanagram (from ''blank''+''anagram'') is a word which is an
anagram of another but for the substitution of a single letter. The term has its origin in competitive
Scrabble
''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...
, where a blank tile on a player's rack may be used to form any of several possible words in conjunction with the player's other tiles.
Examples of blanagrams
*On the list of currently acceptable words for club and tournament Scrabble in North America (
OWL2), the anagram pair EPICOTYL/LIPOCYTE has 18 blanagrams:
**Replacing C with L or N yields POLITELY or LINOTYPE;
**Replacing I with A or F yields CALOTYPE or COPYLEFT;
**Replacing L with C or D yields ECOTYPIC or COPYEDIT;
**Replacing O with H or I yields PHYLETIC or PYELITIC;
**Replacing P with R or V yields CRYOLITE or VELOCITY;
**Replacing T with N yields POLYENIC;
**Replacing Y with A, H, N, R, or U yields POETICAL, CHIPOTLE/HELICOPT, LEPTONIC, LEPROTIC/PETROLIC, or POULTICE.
:Note that in this case no blanagram is available by replacing the E, so EPICOTYL and LIPOCYTE are the only eight-letter words that can be formed from the Scrabble tiles CILOPTY plus a blank.
*The eight-letter word ANGRIEST (and anagrams such as GANTRIES and INGRATES) has over 100 blanagrams that are common words, and many more that are more obscure.
*The word FILMCARD has only one acceptable blanagram: FLUIDRAM. (However, some other dictionaries list other possibilities, such as FRICADEL and FILECARD
).
*
Turkish is a blanagram of
Kurdish
Kurdish may refer to:
*Kurds or Kurdish people
*Kurdish languages
*Kurdish alphabets
*Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes:
**Southern Kurdistan
**Eastern Kurdistan
**Northern Kurdistan
**Western Kurdistan
See also
* Kurd (dis ...
.
*
Pangram
A pangram or holoalphabetic sentence is a sentence using every letter of a given alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting, calligraphy, and keyboarding.
Origins
The ...
,
Tangram
The tangram () is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat polygons, called ''tans'', which are put together to form shapes. The objective is to replicate a pattern (given only an outline) generally found in a puzzle book using all seven pi ...
and
Managua
)
, settlement_type = Capital city
, motto =
, image_map =
, mapsize =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Nicar ...
are blanagrams of the word
anagram.
Many seven- and eight-letter words, such as KILOVOLT and
QUIXOTIC
Quixotic may refer to:
* Quixotism, deriving from the novel ''Don Quixote''
* ''Quixotic'' (album), an album by Martina Topley-Bird
* Quix*o*tic Quix*o*tic was a rock band active from 1997 to 2002 in the area of Washington, D.C., United States. T ...
, have no acceptable blanagrams; such words typically contain a subset of the letters JKQVWXZ.
References
{{Scrabble
Scrabble
Word play