English for Students

History of Palindromes

History of Palindromes dates back to few centuries.Palindromes as a form of wordplay have been created for many centuries. For example, the ancient Greeks are known to have often inscribed the following onto their fountains:

Nipson anomemata me monan opsin.

It translates as wash the sin as well as the face. Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the above is not actually a palindrome. This is because we have written it using letters of the English alphabet; when Greek characters are used it is a palindrome because ps is a single letter in Greek ().

The Romans were also admirers of palindromes, and produced such sentences as:

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.

It means we enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire and is said to describe the movement of moths.

The word palindrome is derived from the Greek palíndromos, meaning running back again (palín = AGAIN + drom–, drameîn = RUN). A palindrome is a word or phrase which reads the same in both directions. Some simple examples are:



RACECAR

PIP

CIVIC

NUN

POP

RADAR

MADAM

TOOT

DEED

LEVEL

ROTOR

EYE

Words like LIVE and STRAW (which read EVIL and WARTS backwards) are not themselves palindromes but the "phrases" LIVE EVIL and STRAW WARTS are. A palindrome is not necessarily a single word.

The longest single English word in common usage which is a palindrome is REDIVIDER, although the contrived chemical term DETARTRATED is two letters longer.

In Finnish there is a 25-letter palindromic word: SOLUTOMAATTIMITTAAMOTULOS which means the result from a measurement laboratory for tomatoes, although technically it is a compound of four words.

There is also the equally long SAIPPUAKUPPINIPPUKAUPPIAS which means soap cup trader.

When creating reversible sentences, it is usually accepted that punctuation and word spacings are ignored, and so the famous MADAM, I'M ADAM is a valid palindrome.

History of Palindromes dates back to few centuries.Palindromes as a form of wordplay have been created for many centuries.

Here are more Palindromes

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