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Palindrome
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"Palindromes" redirects here. For the film, see


Palindromes (film).

A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other


sequence of symbols that reads the same
backwards as forwards, such as madam or racecar,
the date and time 12/21/33 12:21, and the sentence:
"A man, a plan, a canal – Panama". The 19-letter
Finnish word saippuakivikauppias (a soapstone
vendor), is the longest single-word palindrome in
everyday use, while the 12-letter term tattarrattat
(from James Joyce in Ulysses) is the longest in
English.

The 4th-century Greek palindrome: ΝΙΨΟΝ


ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ (Wash your sins,
not only your face), in the monastery of Panayia
Malevi [el].[1].

The word palindrome was introduced by English


poet and writer Henry Peacham in 1638.[2] The
concept of a palindrome can be dated to the 3rd-
century BCE, although no examples survive. The
earliest known examples are the 1st-century CE
Latin acrostic word square, the Sator Square (which
contains both word and sentence palindromes), and
the 4th-century Greek Byzantine sentence
palindrome nipson anomemata me monan opsin.[3]
[4]

Palindromes are also found in music (the table


canon and crab canon) and biological structures
(most genomes include palindromic gene
sequences). In automata theory, the set of all
palindromes over an alphabet is a context-free
language, but it is not regular.

Etymology

Historical development

Types

Longest palindromes

Other occurrences

Notable palindromists

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Last edited 3 days ago by 88.212.130.145

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