What is a Palindrome?

Welcome to the Palindrome

Palindrome. The word creates images of people in vehicles driving in circles driving around and crashing into each other, or some kind of flying machine, although that is not actually even close to the real meaning of the word. That's the interesting thing about words, just the sound of them can remind us of places, or people, or other moments in time. They can also do other things as well, such as act as mirrors, and that's where palindromes come in. These are words, phrases, or numbers that read the same forward as they do backwards. The name 'palindrome' actually comes from a Greek word meaning 'running back again.'

Examples of Palindromes

Although palindromes include numbers and phrases, this lesson will focus mainly on single words. Take a look at the first example, racecar:

A few other common palindromes include: did, deed, civic, pop, eye, rotor, radar, nun, mom, and dad.

An interesting fact about palindromes is that they don't usually follow capitalization and punctuation rules, so a name, like Hannah, can still be considered a palindrome:

Another interesting fact about palindromes is that the longest one in the English language is nine letters long, redivider. But, there are a few Finnish palindromes which put that one to shame, as there are actually two that have 25 letters in them.

Palindromes also come in phrases. Something to remember about phrases that are palindromes is that they don't follow the same punctuation and spacing rules, the same way words don't follow capitalization rules. Look at the phrase 'live evil.'

Although neither word is a palindrome by itself, put together in a phrase and it becomes one. An example of an even longer phrase is 'pull up if I pull up.'

A few other phrases include: 'was it a cat I saw?' You could also substitute 'bat' or 'rat' for 'cat' and still make it a palindrome. Also, 'we panic in a pew' is another palindrome phrase.