“Palindrome: 1. A word, phrase, or longer expression that reads the same backward as it does forwards: for example, the words level and noon, and the phrases, and the phrases Madam, I’m Adam, and Able was I ere I saw Elba. 2. Also reversal, semordnilap (a reversal backward palindrome). A word that spells another word when reversed: for example, doom, evil, warts, and the trade names Serutan, Trebor.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
