You know, like STRESSED and DESSERTS. Any other examples? (And no, I don’t count “Serutan” as a word.) Also, is there a name for this? Complementary palindromes? Mirror-image words?
Perhaps “semordnilap” and “palindromes”
‘Retartrated’ is a real word that is the opposite of its evil twin ‘Detartrated’ and it ties.
I found rewarder and redrawer, but those are the same length (8 letters) as your example.
My source is a Scrabble dictionary that I found on-line.
I challenge that statement
At the bottom of this page from “A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia”, a bunch of reversed pairs of words are listed. The only eight-letter pairs appear to be desserts/stressed, redrawer/rewarder, departer/retraped (odd spelling there), and dioramas/samaroid (samaroid meaning shaped like a samara.)
I wasn’t sure if Bytegeist did an exhaustive scan through that dictionary, but it looks like so. In full:
8 LETTERS (2)
desserts/stressed, redrawer/rewarder
7 LETTERS (6)
deifier/reified, deliver/reviled, dessert/tressed, gateman/nametag, reknits/stinker, sallets/stellas
6 LETTERS (42)
agenes/senega, animal/lamina, animes/semina, degami/imaged, denier/reined, denies/seined, depots/stoped, derats/stared, dewans/snawed, dialer/relaid, diaper/repaid, dormin/nimrod, drawer/reward, elides/sedile, eviler/relive, gelder/redleg, levins/snivel, looter/retool, pupils/slipup, recaps/spacer, redips/spider, redraw/warder, reflet/telfer, reflow/wolfer, reknit/tinker, remeet/teemer, rennet/tenner, repins/sniper, repots/stoper, retros/sorter, scares/seracs, secret/terces, selahs/shales, skeets/steeks, sleeps/speels, sleets/steels, sloops/spools, snoops/spoons, spirts/strips, sports/strops, sprits/stirps, struts/sturts
5 LETTERS (86)
<clipped>
4 LETTERS (151)
<clipped>
3 LETTERS (135)
<clipped>
2 LETTERS (22)
<clipped>
I checked it very thoroughly.
the “tartrate” stuff came from here, perhaps?
http://cosmos.phy.tufts.edu/mhonarc/palindrome/msg00670.html
Shagnasty probably meant “detartrater” in place of “detartrated”
I’m unsure if I’d count either as a real word.
That page is an article by Dmitri Borgmann, who was something else when it came to word play. He may have thought he was coining detartrated or perhaps just figured chemists could potentially use it, but it turns out the word has an actual meaning and use in the processing of fruit juice. Look at the link MikeS gave – up near the top is some info. You can probably find more by googling “detartrated grape juice”.
As far as retartrated/detartrater, yeah, those are a bit questionable. You’re unikely to find any legitimate uses on the net, but the same is true of redivider, and lots of people think that’s a valid palindrome.
Retartrated and detartrater are the pair that work; their colleagues detartrated and retartrater are grden variety palindromes.
But, Shag, you’ll shoot yourself at not remembering the term for these pairs – its on;y other use is in organic chem.
They’re enantiomorphs.
That seems more possible. Thanks for clearing that up.
You’re a genius! enantiomorphs and shpromoitnane!
Wait…
What would be really cool is if your real name was Margo L. L’Elehcar.
Quoth Polycarp:
Believe it or not, I just completely independently stumbled upon this word in yet another context-- Solid geometry. See Catalan solid - Wikipedia
The meaning is probably basically the same as the meaning in organic chem, though.
Nobody said they have to be in English.
For instance, the longest palindrome in any language is koortsmeetsysteemstrook - Dutch for thermometer.
Maybe this opens up fresh avenues for exploration?