I was in a café in the 15th arrondissement here in Paris yesterday when the subject of anagrams came up. The word "post", we worked out, can be formed into "opts" "pots" "spot" and "stop" -quite a high number really.
Anyway, I woke up at about four this morning (it's pretty warm in Paris just now) and spent an hour trying to find some other word that would offer up even more anagrams, and out of nowhere I came up with the word "Satel" (a telecommunications outfit I'd been reading about) which can be formed into goodness knows how many anagarams - I reached double figures myself, which isn't bad for a four-in-the-morning effort.
So, does anyone know which single word in English can be made into the highest number of anagrams. Please?

And it can be made into tops as well.

Colin, what are your rules for anagrams? Does the word have to use all the letters, so that only five -letter words are made from a five -letter word, or is it permissible to make words of fewer letters from it? Are plurals permitted as well as the singular noun ? How long is the original word to be?

The London Evening Standard has a daily anagram puzzle for commuters. Yesterday the word was 'instruct' from which they made 31 words of four or more letters and without using plural forms; the rules neatly exclude 'tins' on both counts .No proper nouns, such as place-names, are permitted . Today's word is 'jubilate'. They say the average expected, in a time limit of 45 minutes, is 26 words of four or more letters, as above.

PS The letters AEGINRST are said to produce 157 words ; see www.anagrammy.com for this topic

Merriam-Webster's unabridged dictionary contains entries for these 14 words using all letters

anestri, asterin, eranist, nastier, ratines, resiant, restain, retains, retinas, retsina, sainter, stainer, starnie, stearin.

Fine answers! Yes, the idea is to use all of the letters in the original word and not just some of them - though that's an interesting exercise too. Jenny's example is impressive, even if I'm only familiar with half of the words listed! Can we get up to as many as 14 from the five-letter word "Satel" I wonder? least, stale, steal, leats, tesla, teals, tales, lates (as in "To sign the 'lates' book upon arriving at work) and slate are the obvious ones I suppose. That's nine.

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