wordplay

Anagrams (as commonly seen these days in TV commercials for the New York Times) are one of the most widely known forms of wordplay, but many other forms exist:

• reversals
• deletions
• palindromes
• rebuses
• charades
• word ladders
• letter banks
• spoonerisms/spoonergrams, and spoonergram variations

Word"play` (?), n.

A more or less subtle playing upon the meaning of words.

© Webster 1913