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 insciption in Herculaneum - it reads:

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 be written by Christians as the word PATERNOSTER is contained within the letters.