Palindrome
A word or phrase that reads the same backward as forward.
A palindrome is a sequence of letters or sounds that is identical when read from either direction. The term comes from Greek palindromos, 'running back again.' Famous English palindromes include 'A man, a plan, a canal: Panama,' 'Madam, I'm Adam,' and the single word 'radar.'
Palindromes are usually treated as a form of wordplay rather than as a serious figure of speech. They appear in riddles, inscriptions, jokes, and constrained writing. Their charm is the demonstration that language can be reversible.
In quotation, a palindrome is memorable because it violates expectation. The reader moves forward and then, on reaching the middle, realises the sentence is folding back on itself. This makes palindromes natural epigraphs for works about time, mirrors, or recursion.
Common mistake: counting any mirrored phrase as a palindrome. Punctuation and spaces are usually ignored in palindrome puzzles, but a true palindrome is letter-perfect.
“A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.”
Keep reading the glossary
A quotable statement built to conceal its referent until the hearer solves it.
A figure in which one word governs two or more others in different senses — often for wit or surprise.
The rhetorical name for the pun — a play on words that exploits sound similarity or multiple meanings.
A rhetorical figure that repeats words in reverse grammatical order to reverse the sense.