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Glite Dictionary
antigram

antigram

9.9
A word made by changing the order of another word's letters to mean the opposite
  • noun
  • /ˈæntɪˌɡræm/
: antigrama
  • The word 'united' and 'untied' form an antigram, as their meanings oppose each other.

Examples

  • In linguistics, an antigram is considered a special form of anagram with contrasting meanings.

  • She enjoys challenging her friends to discover an antigram from a difficult word.

  • An antigram is a fun wordplay.

  • The word 'united' is an antigram of 'untied'.

  • The words 'gain' and 'loss' are examples of antigrams because they express opposite meanings.

  • Finding an antigram can be a tricky but entertaining challenge for word enthusiasts.

  • An antigram transforms the word 'silent' into 'listen', which conveys an opposing idea.

Surface Forms

antigram singular
antigrams plural

Morphology

antigram = anti + gram

The word is a coined form built on the bound element 'gram', but the connection to its metalinguistic definition is not compositionally obvious for an average learner.

Etymology

Antigram is built from anti- meaning 'against' or 'opposite' and anagram, a word made by moving the letters. So an antigram is an anagram that gives a meaning 'opposite' to the original, as when 'united' becomes 'untied'.