CANCRINE/ˈkæŋkraɪn/

Palindromic.

This one is as defunct a word as you are likely to meet in this section, since its sense of something that reads the same backwards as forwards has entirely been taken over by the much more common palindromic and I can find only one recent example. It really contains within itself more of an idea of going sideways than backwards, since it derives from the Latin cancrinus, relating to a crab. But it has been used in particular to refer to a type of Latin verse that is the same in either direction; the example usually quoted is “Signa te signa. Temere me tangis et angis. / Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor”, each half of which is cancrine (It was supposedly said by the Devil to St Martin, who had changed him into a donkey and ridden him to Rome. In translation: “Cross thyself, you plague and vex me without need. For by my efforts you are about to reach Rome, the object of your travel”.) It doesn’t refer only to verse though: Bach’s Crab Canon, which is a musical palindrome, has also been described as cancrine.

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