palindrome

Meaning

1. A word, phrase, number or any other sequence of units which has the property of reading the same forwards as it does backwards, character for character, sometimes disregarding punctuation, capitalization and diacritics.
2. A poetic form in which the sequence of words reads the same in either direction.
3. A sequence of items that follows the same pattern both forwards and backwards.
4. A stretch of DNA in which the sequence of nucleotides on one strand are in the reverse order to that of the complementary strand

Etymology / origin

From Ancient Greek παλίνδρομος (palíndromos, “running back again”), from πάλιν (pálin, “back, again, back again”) + δρόμος (drómos, “running, race, racecourse”). By surface analysis, palin- + -drome (compare also velodrome and syndrome).

Related words

Descendant words

• palindromi(Finnish) (cog)

Sources

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