Learn English – What do you call in English for the words like this ‘rotor’

vocabularyword-request

Consider the word rotor. Whichever way you read it, from left to right or from right to left, you get the same word.

Is there any specific word for words like this?

Best Answer

This is called a palindrome:

a word, verse, or sentence (as “Able was I ere I saw Elba”) or a number (as 1881) that reads the same backward or forward

Example:

Madam
Bob
Otto

As it is clear from the meaning that it is not only limited to words, but phrases, sentences and numbers, too. Allowances may be made for adjustments to capital letters, punctuation, and word dividers.

Example:

  • Nurses run.
  • A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
  • A Santa lived as a devil at NASA.
  • 12321

There is another word, semordnilap, which is nothing but palindromes spelled backward. However, semordnilap is a name coined for words that spell a different word in reverse.

Example:

stressed <=> desserts

Sources:

Wiki and Merriam-webster

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