How it works
These words that are funny spelled backwards were found by rule, not from memory. Every word of a word list was reversed, and those the list still knows were kept: stressed turns into desserts, pupils into slipup.
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Three kinds
One word turns into another holds words backwards that are other words: drawer and reward, knob and bonk, ogre and ergo. The same both ways holds words such as kayak and rotator. Whole sentences read the same once spaces and punctuation are dropped.
Spelling, not sound
This page is about letters. Funny words to say backwards, or funny words to say in reverse, are a game of sound, which a spelling list cannot settle. For a line of your own, mirror text runs it backwards with each letter flipped.
- The longest pairs in the word list have eight letters: stressed and desserts, and redrawer and rewarder.
- The longest words there that read the same both ways have seven letters, among them deified, repaper, reviver and rotator.
Questions and answers
What are some funny words backwards?
Stressed turns into desserts, pupils into slipup, knob into bonk, straw into warts, diaper into repaid and animal into lamina. Each word of a pair is in the word list.
What is a word that spells another word backwards called?
An anadrome. Wikipedia's article on the term records semordnilap, which is palindromes spelled backwards, as a humorous name for it. A palindrome is a word or line that reads the same in both directions.
How old are the sentences?
Wikipedia's article on palindromes dates Able was I ere I saw Elba to 1848, Madam, I'm Adam to 1861, Never odd or even to 1930 and A man, a plan, a canal: Panama to 1948.
Why is racecar not on the list?
The ENABLE word list, 173,528 English words that its makers released into the public domain, does not hold racecar as one word. Race car stands under Whole sentences, where spaces are dropped. Rude entries are left out.