Palindrome
A palindrome is a word, phrase, number or sentence that reads the same forwards and backwards, such as racecar or 'Never odd or even'.
Racecar. Level. Madam. Read them backward and nothing changes.
Word and phrase palindromes
- Single words: noon, kayak, rotor, civic, refer.
- Phrases: "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama." "Was it a car or a cat I saw?" "Madam, I'm Adam."
- Whole sentences: "Never odd or even."
For phrases, ignore spaces, capitals and punctuation, and compare only the letters.
Other kinds
- Word-by-word palindromes reverse the order of words, not letters: "You can cage a swallow, can't you, but you can't swallow a cage, can you?"
- Numeric palindromes such as 1991.
- Verse palindromes where a poem reads sensibly in either direction, a feat of great difficulty.
How to make one
Start from the middle and build outward, adding matching letters to each side. A seed such as "a car" or "rats live on no evil star" grows by trial. Because the second half is fixed by the first, palindromes of any length are a puzzle in themselves, and many are nonsense. The good ones also make sense.
Why it matters to a writer or editor
Palindromes teach attention to letters and show how constrained writing forces odd, vivid word choices. In fiction they are a ready device for puzzles, names and codes. For an editor, they are a reminder that spelling is visual as well as phonetic. Related puzzles include the anagram and the pangram, and the broader idea is in wordplay.
Frequently asked questions
Are spaces and punctuation counted?
For phrases, no. 'A man, a plan, a canal: Panama' is a palindrome once you ignore spaces, capitals and punctuation and read only the letters.
What is the longest palindromic word?
In common English, 'tattarrattat', coined by James Joyce in Ulysses for the sound of a knock, has twelve letters. Among real dictionary words 'redivider' is a well-known long one.
Can numbers be palindromes?
Yes. 12321 and 2002 read the same both ways. Dates such as 02/02/2020 have been celebrated as palindrome days.