chronogram

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June 24, 2026

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A chronogram is an inscription, sentence, or phrase where specific letters are used to represent a date or epoch. These letters, when deciphered, form a numerical value that indicates a particular year. The term "chronogrammatic" describes something that contains or bears a chronogram. This practice has been used since at least 1621. While chronographs are instruments for measuring time, chronograms are inscriptions that encode dates.123

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Skills required of the writer
…to be able to handle chronograms, codes based on the numerical values of a phrase or verse, which, when understood, gave the date of some relevant event. Later writers sometimes supplied the date of a book’s compilation by hiding a chronogram in its title. A favourite device in poetry was…
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…to be able to handle chronograms, codes based on the numerical values of a phrase or verse, which, when understood, gave the date of some relevant event. Later writers sometimes supplied the date of a book’s compilation by hiding a chronogram in its title. A favourite device in poetry was…
Read More