ambigram

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English[edit]

An ambigram of the word ambigram
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Etymology[edit]

From ambi- +‎ -gram. Coined by Douglas Hofstadter.[1]

Noun[edit]

ambigram (plural ambigrams)

  1. A calligraphic design that may be read as the same word or phrase (or sometimes different words or phrases) when oriented in two different ways, usually when reflected along a vertical or horizontal axis or when rotated through 180 degrees.
    • 1992, John Langdon, Wordplay, published 2005, page 52:
      Two nonvisual factors provide dissymmetry and prevent the ambigram from existing in a static equilibrium; most of the letters in an ambigram metamorphose into other letters when reversed; and each of those accompanying sentences provides a different idea of the word's meaning.
    • 1997, Research and Education Networking, Volume 8, Issues 1-6, page 290,
      An ambigram is a word that reads the same right-side-up and upside-down. MOW is a natural ambigram, for instance, but any word can be flipped if the right graphic artist gets his hands on it.
    • 2007, Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop[1], page 312:
      Next, I imagine that Switch #2 causes me every single weekend (and every other spare moment as well) to elect, instead of designing ambigrams or working hard on my book about being a strange loop, to spend hours on end watching professional football games on a huge-screen television and delightedly ogling all the busty babes in the beer ads.

Translations[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ 2000, Jill Britton, Symmetry and Tessellations, page 179—You will also find other "ambigrams" (the generic term for inversions, coined by cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter) on the web.