Word whose spelling is derived by reversing the spelling of another word
This article is about a type of anagram. Not to be confused with Anadromy.
An animation of the anadrome of wolf and flow.
An anadrome[1][2][3][4][a], also known as a levidrome, semordnilap, or emordnilap, is a word or phrase whose letters can be reversed to spell a different word or phrase. For example, desserts is an anadrome of stressed. An anadrome is therefore a special type of anagram. The English language is replete with such words.
The word anadrome comes from Greek anádromos (ἀνάδρομος), "running backward", and can be compared to palíndromos (παλίνδρομος), "running back again" (whence palindrome).
There is a long history (dating at least to the fourteenth century, as with Trebor and S. Uciredor) of alternate and invented names being created out of anadromes of real names; such a contrived proper noun is sometimes called an ananym, especially if it is used as personal pseudonym. Unlike typical anadromes, these anadromic formations often do not conform to any real names or words. Similarly cacographic anadromes are also characteristic of Victorian back slang, where for example yob stands for boy.
Examples
The English language has a very large number of single-word anadromes, by some counts more than 900.[3] Some examples:
two letters: am ↔ ma; eh ↔ he; ew ↔ we; no ↔ on
three letters: bro ↔ orb; dog ↔ god; gum ↔ mug; nip ↔ pin
four letters: edit ↔ tide; evil ↔ live; liar ↔ rail; part ↔ trap
five letters: denim ↔ mined; knits ↔ stink; lever ↔ revel; peels ↔ sleep
An anadrome can also be a phrase, as in no tops ↔ spot on. The word redrum (i.e., "red rum") is used this way for murder in the Stephen King novel The Shining (1977) and its film adaptation (1980).[11]
Anadromes exist in other written languages as well, as can be seen, for example, in Spanishorar ↔ raro or Frenchl'ami naturel ("the natural friend") ↔ le rut animal ("the animal rut").
A "riches to rags" tale as opposed to Cinderella's rags to riches. Used by Jonathan Gershuny of high-achieving women whose careers stall after marriage.
Many jazz titles were written by reversing names or nouns: Ecaroh inverts the spelling of its composer Horace Silver's Christian name. Sonny Rollins dedicated to Nigeria a tune called "Airegin".
A number of Pokémon species, such as the snake Pokémon Ekans and Arbok (cobra backwards with a K), have anadromic names.
See also
Back slang, use of invented anadromes as coded language
^Also called (often humorously) a semordnilap[5] or emordnilap,[6] and sometimes called a levidrome.
Semordnilap is an anadrome of palindromes. According to author O. V. Michaelsen in his 1997 book Words at Play, semordnilap was probably first used by recreational linguist Dmitri Borgmann, cited by Martin Gardner in the revised edition of Charles Carroll Bombaugh's Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature (1961).[7]
Levi Budd, a boy from Toronto, Canada, coined levidrome in 2017, and there were attempts to get it recognized by Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionary.[8] In 2018, Oxford replied that it is still not ready.[9] As of 2021, it is still being requested.[10]
^Brunton, Finn (November–December 2010). "Roar so wildly: Spam, technology and language"(PDF). Radical Philosophy (164): 6. Retrieved December 13, 2024. Bifacial text, a kind of anadrome which reads with two distinct meanings when read forward or backward.
^ abSutherland, Denise (2020). Solving Cryptic Crosswords for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. p. 61. These sorts of two-way words are called anadromes, and roughly 900 of them exist in everyday English.
^Balfour Daniels, R. (Winter 1969). "Names in the Fiction of Samuel Butler (1835-1902)". The South Central Bulletin. 29 (4). Johns Hopkins University Press, South Central Modern Language Association: 129–132. doi:10.2307/3187333. JSTOR3187333.
^ abRidpath, Ian; Tirion, Wil (2007). Stars and planets: the most complete guide to the stars, planets, galaxies, and the solar system. Princeton University Press. p. 140. ISBN978-0-691-13556-4.
^Phelps, Dawson A.; Edward Hunter Ross (Fall 1952). "Names Please: Place Names along the Natchez Trace"(PDF). The Journal of Mississippi History. 14. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Mississippi Historical Society: 240. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-10-07. Retrieved 2011-01-15.
