Word game

A word game is a game that uses words, letters, sentences or other parts of a language. They are often board games, but are not necessarily; for example, Scrabble Slam does not use a board. Wordplay is often classified with word games.

History

One of the first known instances of wordplay was the so-called Sator Square. This was found in an inscription in Herculaneum. It contains five words each of five letters:

S	A	T	O	R
A	R	E	P	O
T	E	N	E	T
O	P	E	R	A
R	O	T	A	S

The table is notable as, strung together, it is a long palindrome and also the words are identical vertically and horizontally. It is also believed to possibly have been written by Christians as the word PATERNOSTER is contained within the letters. It is written in Latin; translated to English it reads "Arepo the Sower holds the wheels, his works."

Anagrams were popular in the Roman times and the Middle Ages and are still popular today. Crosswords were invented in 1913 and Scrabble in 1931 (or '38 - the precise date varies depending on the source).. Many other word games have become popular more recently, such as Boggle and Scrabble Slam - and of course, nowadays these all have online counterparts.

Examples

• Crosswords
• Boggle
• Scrabble
• Anagrams
• Palindromes