What are the word records for letter-shift pair (shift letters to new letters in the alphabet to form...
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New entry, edited from material collected for the archive and not yet in a released version.
Problem
What are the word records for letter-shift pair (shift letters to new letters in the alphabet to form another word)? (Spelling / Alphabetical Order / Entire Word) a. rot-13 pair (shift letters by half the alphabet to form another word) b. fixed offset shift pair (shift letters by a fixed offset to form another word) [L139,2-24,11-188,12-243,13-27,23-59] c. changing offset shift pair (shift letters by a changing offset to form another word), longest [12-50] d. multiplicative offset shift pair (shift letters by a multiplicative factor through alphabet to form another word), longest [15-48] e. shiftgram pair (shift letters through alphabet and transpose to form another word), longest [M179, 12-218,13-22,88,182] f. atbash pair (reflect letters across center of alphabet) [37-50] [ Editor: question framed by the editor from the headings of the Taxonomy of Wordplay. ]
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[ Editor: from the Taxonomy of Wordplay, www.questrel.com, retrieved 28 Oct 2026. Classes (common, uncommon, hyphenated words, phrases), scores, ties (-t) and the source codes in brackets are explained in language/english/word.records.introduction. ]
e.g., HAL = IBM: H + 1 = I, A + 1 = B, L + 1 = M
a. rot-13 pair (shift letters by half the alphabet to form another word)
i. longest
common words: creel & perry (5-t)
common words: green & terra (5-t)
uncommon words: abjurer & nowhere (7-t)
uncommon words: chechen & purpura (7-t)
ii. longest reversed
common words: rebore & rebore (6-t)
common words: ravine & ravine (6-t)
uncommon words: tavering & tavering (8)
b. fixed offset shift pair (shift letters by a fixed offset to form another word) [L139,2-24,11-188,12-243,13-27,23-59]
i. longest
common words: primero & sulphur [shift of 23] (7)
uncommon words: corocoro & wiliwili [shift of 6] (8)
ii. longest reversed
common words: rebore & rebore [shift of 13] (6-t)
common words: bonnet & judder [shift of 10] (6-t)
common words: hitter & napped [shift of 22] (6-t)
common words: ravine & ravine [shift of 13] (6-t)
common words: lethal & shoals [shift of 19] (6-t)
uncommon words: tavering & tavering [shift of 13] (8)
iii. longest multiple
common words: diffs = cheer = jolly [shifts of 25, 6] (5)
iv. most multiple
common words: ply = ean = ier = sob [shifts of 15, 19, 3] (3-t)
common words: sap = god = owl = wet [shifts of 14, 22, 4] (3-t)
uncommon words: obo = ana = bob = ere = huh = nan = viv [shifts of 12, 13, 16, 19, 25, 7] (6-t)
uncommon words: cui = ewk = gym = iao = mes = sky = uma [shifts of 2, 4, 6, 10, 16, 18] (6-t)
c. changing offset shift pair (shift letters by a changing offset to form another word), longest [12-50]
e.g., EMU = FOX: E + 1 = F, M + 2 = O, U + 3 = X
common words: fracas & oblong [shift of 9] (6-t)
common words: rostra & sorrow [shift of 25] (6-t)
common words: talcum & uakari [shift of 25] (6-t)
uncommon words: kahikateas & nemoricole [shift of 3] (10)
d. multiplicative offset shift pair (shift letters by a multiplicative factor through alphabet to form another word), longest [15-48]
e.g., ONE = WRY: O * 5 = W, N * 5 = R, E * 5 = Y
common words: humani & namers [factor of 5] (6-t)
common words: bonobo & revere [factor of 9] (6-t)
uncommon words: dildoes & rubrica [factor of 11] (7-t)
uncommon words: forebay & pavings [factor of 7] (7-t)
uncommon words: cereals & kanauri [factor of 21] (7-t)
uncommon words: martels & mundari [factor of 21] (7-t)
uncommon words: nomexes & tamilic [factor of 7] (7-t)
e. shiftgram pair (shift letters through alphabet and transpose to form another word), longest [M179, 12-218,13-22,88,182]
common words: deflectors & distraught [shift of 11] (10-t)
common words: nonnuclear & reflective [shift of 17] (10-t)
common words: preserving & refractive [shift of 13] (10-t)
common words: spaghettis & stepladder [shift of 15] (10-t)
common words: forbidding & twinklings [shift of 5] (10-t)
uncommon words: pentadactyle & precipitants [shift of 15] (12)
phrases: harlequin opal & presumptively [shift of 4] (13-t)
phrases: doppler effect & tertius gaudet [shift of 11] (13-t)
f. atbash pair (reflect letters across center of alphabet) [37-50]
e.g., ARK = ZIP: A = Z, R = I, K = P
i. longest
common words: grogs & tilth (5)
ii. longest reversed
common words: boorish & shrilly (7)
hyphenated words: klop-klop & klop-klop (8)
-- Taxonomy of Wordplay, www.questrel.com
[ Editor: a 1994 compilation of rot-13 word pairs (each word becomes
the other when every letter is moved 13 places along the alphabet),
sent to the archive by Pete Mitchell, followed by Richard Sabey's list
in reply to Mark Meyerson's original posting. ]
For those words that came from multiple sources (of which there were
many) I mention only the source that reached me first. Words with no
name mention were those on my original posting. No attempt to
determine originality has been made, and such should not be inferred.
No validation has been done on my part; in other words, don't complain
to *me* if something in the list isn't a real word. Any further
disclaimers not explicitly thought of above are hereby officially
implied by this last catch-all disclaimer. :-)
Now comes the hard part; making sentences...anyone??? :-)
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ab no - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
abba noon - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
abe nor - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
abjurer nowhere - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
abo nob - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
ah nu
aha nun - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
an na - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
anil navy - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
ant nag
arg net - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
arne near - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
avo nib - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
ba on - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
balk onyx
bar one
barf ones
bc op - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
be or
becuna orphan - courtesy "Jim Gillogly - jim@acm.org"
been orra - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
beg ort - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
ben ora - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
bess orff - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
bin ova
bl oy - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
bp oc - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
bs of - courtesy "Mark - mdm@usna.navy.mil"
bub oho - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
cb po - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
cf ps - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
chat pung - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
chechen purpura - courtesy "Jim Gillogly - jim@acm.org"
chef purs - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
cher pure
cheryl purely - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
clerk pyrex - courtesy "Jim Gillogly - jim@acm.org"
craal penny - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
crag pent
creel perry - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
cu ph - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
cv pi - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
di qv - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
ebbs roof
en ra - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
ena ran - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
eng rat - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
eno rab - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
ent rag - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
envy rail
ep rc - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
er re - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
erg ret - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
erne rear - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
errs reef - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
ers ref - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
faber snore - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
ff ss - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
flap sync
frag sent - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
freer serre - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
frere serer - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
fry sel - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
fund shaq
fur she
gel try
ghat tung - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
gnat tang
green terra
gul thy - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
ha un - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
hern urea - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
hi uv - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
if vs
ink vax - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
iq vd - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
iraq vend
irk vex
iv vi - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
jp wc - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
jr we - courtesy "Mark - mdm@usna.navy.mil"
jun wha - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
junes wharf - courtesy "Mark - mdm@usna.navy.mil"
jung what - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
jura when - courtesy "Tim Chow - tycchow@math.mit.edu"
lb yo - courtesy "Jonathan R. Partington - pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk"
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-- Pete Mitchell <pwm@mv.mv.com>
Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org> sent a short Perl program that reads a word
list, rot-13s each word and reports the words already seen [ Editor:
program omitted ], and added:
> After you run this on Webster's 2nd, you might try assigning to your
> English class the task "Use ABJURER and BECUNA in the same sentence.
> Extra credit for either PURPURA or CHECHEN." I kinda like
> PYREX/CLERK, also.
----------
Here are some rot13 word pairs. None of these is in article 14861 of
rec.puzzles, id <Cw86Iy.15M@usna.navy.mil>, posted by mdm@usna.navy.mil
(PROF Mark Meyerson (SMA FAC)).
abe nor
abjurer nowhere
abo nob
ah nu
ana nan
arne near
beg ort
ben ora
bin ova
chat pung
crt peg
cuba phon
era ren
erg ret
err ree
eva rin
flap sync
gent trag
greeny terral
gul thy
han una
her ure
hern urea
ink vax
iv vi
Note that some of these are names (Abe, Arne, Cuba, Eva, Han) or Roman
numerals (iv, vi), CRT is an initialism, and VAX is an acronym.
Note the impressively long "abjurer", "nowhere". The Questrel archive
has the pair "primero", "sulphur" as the longest pair of words where
one is the other, letter shifted by ANY amount. So "abjurer",
"nowhere" equals the Questrel record for a pair of words where one is
the other, letter shifted, if the alphabet is regarded as cyclic.
I like "green terra", too. Also "greeny", "terral", which are both
adjectives. Note the similarity in meaning of "irk" and "vex", too (in
Professor Meyerson's list).
-- Richard Sabey <rsa@swindon.gpsemi.com>
[ Editor: more on rot-13 pairs, rec.puzzles, October and December 1997.
A list of rot-13 pairs by Fred Curtis had included tang=gnat. ]
Trevor Janes <tjanes@newbridge.com> wrote:
> tang = gnat
>
> Not only is one word the rot13 transformation of the other, but one
> is the palindrome of the other! That's gotta be rare! Maybe unique.
> Certainly interesting.
Actually, each is the reversal of the other, not a palindrome. A
palindrome is a sentence, bunch of words, etc. which reads the same
backwards as it does forwards. A reversal is merely reading something
in reverse.
I think that it's much more amazing that words were found (VEX, IRK)
that are rot-13's of each other as well as synonyms.
-- C. Kenneth Stern <ken.stern@yale.edu>
I don't know if this is in the FAQ or not, but it has given me several
minutes of fun perl programming. Below you can find my results. Of
course, "abba" is not really a word, but if you are trying to encrypt
your paper on Scandinavian musical groups, it might matter. The last
one is simply amazing: not only do irk and vex rot13 into each other,
they are synonyms!
abba noon
aha nun
ant nag
balk onyx
bar one
bare oner
be or
beg ort (ort - a scrap or morsel left after a meal)
belk oryx
bin ova
chat pung
crag pent
creel perry (creel - a wicker basket. perry - fermented pear juice (!))
envy rail
erg ret (ret - to soak, esp. flax. Good crossword word)
erne rear (erne - eagle. Another good crossword word)
fur she
gag tnt
gel try
gnat tang
green terra
gul thy
hern urea (hern - var. of heron. A stretch to be in the list)
hin uva (hin - ancient Hebrew liquid measure. uva - a
grape-like fruit. Both of these are rather poor)
irk vex
-- Clark Dorman <clark@s3i.com>
[ Editor: a partial list by Mike Naylor in the same thread (all of whose
pairs appear above) ended "and the longest: abjurer-nowhere." ]