I've found in one of the Mensa quizzes a puzzle asking for a 6 letter word that allows creation of 3 valid English words just by simply permuting the 123456 word
into 426153, 462315 & 623451.
It is not too difficult to solve it, if you wish.

I've tried to find an example that provides more answers, searched 7-letter words, surfed the web and finally got a set of 5 letters allowing 5 permutations.

Prior to giving you the sequences I must admit that:
a. proper names (people or geographical entities) are allowed.
b. plural form is OK -S is one of the letters.

The 5 permutations are:
12345
32451
51243
54123
12435

What are the words and their meanings?

(In reply to I found this by Steven Lord)

Steven,

The two questionable words are both in the SOWPODS word list and can be found in an online English dictionary though they may be noted as obsolete. 

ARETS - (obsolete) imputes a fault to or upon someone
STEAR - (obsolete) to steer

Of your list of anagrams, there is at least one English word that can be added to your first list giving it a possible size of 14 words, and at least four other English words that may be added to the second list giving it a possible list size of 17 words:

REPAS - (rare) a meal; a repast; a feast

AREST - (obsolete) support for a spear couched for an attack
ASTRE - heath, home
SERTA - a Syriac cursive script
TARSE - (archaic) penis

Edited on August 29, 2020, 12:16 am

Posted by Dej Mar on 2020-08-29 00:15:18