Semordnilap is a name coined for a word or phrase that spells a different word or phrase backward. "semordnilap" is itself "palindromes" spelled backward. According to author O.V. Michaelsen, it was probably coined by logologist Dmitri A. Borgmann and appeared in Oddities and Curiosities, annotated by Martin Gardner, 1961. Semordnilaps are also known as volvograms, heteropalindromes, semi-palindromes, half-palindromes, reversgrams, mynoretehs, reversible anagrams, word reversals, or anadromes. They have also sometimes been called antigrams, though now, this term usually refers to anagrams with opposing meanings.
These words are very useful in constructing palindromic texts; together, each pair forms a palindrome, and they may be added on either side of a shorter palindrome in order to extend it.
The longest single-word English examples contain eight letters:
- stressed / desserts
- samaroid (resembling a samara) / dioramas
- rewarder / redrawer
- animal / lamina
- departer / retraped (construction based on the fact that verb trape is recorded as an alternative spelling of traipse)
- reporter / retroper (construction based on the fact that trope is recorded as a verb, meaning "to furnish with tropes")
Other examples include:
- was / saw
- god / dog
- gateman / nametag
- deliver / reviled
- straw / warts
- star / rats
- lived / devil
- live / evil
- diaper / repaid
- smart / trams
- spit / tips
- stop / pots
- bats / stab
- swap / paws
The poem Lost Generation is a line-unit semordnilap. When the lines are read in reverse order, it becomes new poem with the opposite meaning. Though the popular YouTube video shows the poem read in both directions, the poem ends with the words "unless you reverse it" inviting the reader to do so in their mind.
Read more about this topic: Palindrome