Definition:
Word play in which a word, phrase, or sentence reads the same backward or forward--such as Madam, I'm Adam. Adjective: palindromic. (Aibohphobia is the palindromic term for an irrational fear of palindromes.) See also: chiasmus.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "running back again"Examples and Observations:
- pop
deed
kayak
civic
radar
level
deified
rotator
repaper
testset
racecar
redivider
detartrated - "tattarrattat"
(James Joyce, Ulysses) - Wassamassaw
(from an American Indian name for "water," a swamp outside of Summerville, South Carolina) - A man, a plan, a canal--Panama!
- Able was I ere I saw Elba.
- Too bad--I hid a boot.
- Do geese see God?
- Murder for a jar of red rum.
- Drab as a fool, aloof as a bard.
- Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
- May a moody baby doom a yam?
- Norma is as selfless as I am, Ron.
(attributed to poet W.H. Auden) - Gateman sees name, garageman sees name tag.
- Some men interpret nine memos.
- "Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog!"
(title of a book on palindromes by Jon Agee, 1991) - "Doc: note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod."
(James Michie, New Statesman, May 5, 1967) - "Once you notice that 'decaf' backward is 'faced,' it is but the work of a moment to invent the indignant complaint of a coffee drinker confronting the absence of regular coffee: 'I faced decaf! I!!' The same process yields a tailor's cranky opinion ('Knits stink!') and a travel agent's apology to a volcanologist: 'Avalon? No lava . . .'"
(Ellis Weiner, "Mind Games," Smithsonian, April 2008) - "T.S. Eliot, top bard, notes putrid tang emanating, is sad. I'd assign it a name: gnat dirt upset on drab pot-toilet."
(Alastair Reid) - Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
Pronunciation: PAL-in-drome
