If you look carefully at the word semordnilap, you might notice that it’s palindromes spelled backward. While a palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same in both directions, a semordnilap is one that spells a different word or phrase in reverse.
You can have a lot of fun with semordnilaps in your writing, especially in fiction and poetry. The clever use of semordnilaps can add extra layers of meaning or humor and increase readers’ enjoyment of your words.
The Best 100 Semordnilaps
A three-minute blog post isn’t long enough to list every semordnilap in the English language, but here are some of our favorite semordnilapic words:
Ah / ha
Bard / drab
Debut / tubed
Deliver / reviled
Denier / reined
Denim / mined
Desserts / stressed
Diaper / repaid
Dog / god
Drawer / reward
Edam / made
Evian / naive
Faced / decaf
Fires / serif
Flog / golf
Gateman / nametag
Gnat / tang
Gob / bog
Knits / stink
Lager / regal
Lever / revel
Loops / spool
Maps / spam
Mood / doom
Mug / gum
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Now / won
Nuts / stun
Ogre / ergo
Oh / ho
On / no
Pupils / slipup
Remit / timer
Slack / kcals
Sloop / pools
Smug / gums
Snaps / spans
Snips / spins
Spit / tips
Sports / strops
Spot / tops
Star / rats
Stinker / reknits
Stop / pots
Swap / paws
Tide / edit
Timer / remit
Wolf / flow
Semordnilaps in Contemporary Literature
Even though the term hadn’t yet been coined, Lewis Carroll introduced the concept of semordnilaps in the first chapter of his 1893 novel Sylvia and Bruno Concluded. Since then, many writers have used reversible words to intriguing effect. Here are a few recent examples:
● In The Enola Holmes Mysteries by Nancy Springer, the main character’s name spells alone backwards, alluding to Enola’s solitary nature.
● The magical Mirror of Erised in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series shows people their deepest longing when they look into it. Hence its name is a reflection – or reversal – of the word desire.
● The title of Barbara Vine’s crime novel A Fatal Inversion refers to Ecalpemos, a short-lived commune in which a group of young people spend the summer of 1976, and where the bones of a woman and baby are discovered some years later. Ecalpemos is, of course, someplace spelled backward.
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