Words & WritingGreek → English
Palindrome
/ˈpælɪndroʊm/noun
A word or phrase that reads the same forwards and backwards.
The Greek roots
πάλιν
pálin
back, again
δρόμος
drómos
a running, race-course
Literally: “running back again”
The story of the word
Ben Jonson put the word into English around 1629, though the Greeks had been making the things for centuries. The best known is a line cut into fonts and fountains across the Byzantine world, ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ, wash the sins and not only the face, which works because Greek writes psi as one letter. English is worse equipped for it, which is why our examples keep coming back to canals and Panama.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 1620s
Same family
hippodromesyndromeaerodromepalimpsest
In a sentence
His daughter is called Hannah, chosen partly because it is a palindrome.