palindrome

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈpælɪndɹəʊm/ (UK); /ˈpælɪndɹoʊm/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek παλίνδρομος (palíndromos, “running back again, recurring”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from pálin “again, back”^{[2][3][4][5][6]} and drómos “a running”.^[2][3][4] Pálin goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to revolve, move round”),^[2][4] and Merriam-Webster relates it to Greek pólos “axis”, the source of pole.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A word, verse or sentence that reads the same backwards as forwards.^[4][7][3]

Semantic evolution

The term was extended to numbers such as 1881,^[5] to music whose second half is the first played in reverse,^[7] and in biology to a stretch of DNA whose sequence on one strand reads in reverse on the complementary strand.^[7][2][6]

Timeline

• c. 1629 – first recorded;^[7][3][5] Etymonline gives the 1620s.^[4]
• 1638 – adjective.^[7]
• before 1876 – palindromist.^[7]
• 1947 – in music.^[7]
• 1974 – in biology.^[7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A word, phrase, verse or number that reads the same backwards and forwards, such as “Madam, I'm Adam”.
2. (genetics) A segment of double-stranded DNA in which the sequence on one strand is the reverse of that on the complementary strand.

Word family

• palindromic
• palindromist
• palindromically

Related words

• dromedary

References

1. [1] Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
3. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. [1] [2] [3] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
7. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press