Today's Word

Yesterday's Word

Archives

FAQ

Feb 2, 2006

This week's theme
Less-known synonyms of everyday words

This week's words
athenaeum
tokology
debark
sartorial
cancrine

Next week’s theme
Loanwords from Sanskrit

---

cancrine

adjective:
1. Reading the same backwards as forwards, palindromic.
For example,
"A man, a plan, a canal: Panama." (letter cancrine)
"So patient a doctor to doctor a patient so!" (word cancrine)

2. Crab-like.

[From Latin cancr- (stem of cancer) cancer + -ine.]

J.S. Bach's Crab Canon is an example of cancrine music.

"At Hingham Church in Norfolk there is a curious cancrine inscription over the font."
R. Hart; Ecclesiastical Records; 1846. [via OED]

X-Bonus