cancrine
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Latin cancer (“crab”) + -īnus, as if from *cancrīnus. The poetry sense comes from the fact that most species of crab can walk sideways, either left or right.
Pronunciation
[edit]Adjective
[edit]cancrine (comparative more cancrine, superlative most cancrine)
- (rare) Of or pertaining to crabs.
- (poetry) Palindromic; reading the same forwards or backwards.
- 1772, José Francisco de Isla, translated by Thomas Nugent, The History of the Famous Preacher Friar Gerund de Campazas: Otherwise Gerund Zotes, volume I, London: T. Davies, page 233:
- […] the prodigious variety of ſo many kinds of verſe, Leonine, Alexandrine, Acroſtic, Chronologic, Hieroglyphic, Cancrine, Croſs-formed, Labyrinthic, Pyramidal, and a thouſand other follies […]
- 1814, “A Short Sketch of a Short Trip to Paris”, in Abraham John Valpy, editor, The Pamphleteer, volume III, number VI, page 532:
- A marble bénitier, vessel for holy water, is surrounded with what Alvarez has denominated a recurrent, or Cancrine verse, which forms the same words beginning at each end: ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ.
- (by extension) Of or pertaining to reading something backwards.
- 1869 June 12, The Athenæum, number 2172, page 792:
- Even then there must have been a touch of profanity in such cancrine exhibitions; for if repeating the Lord’s Prayer backwards has been considered in all Christian ages as part of the means to bring Satan to the side of the repeater, it may be fairly supposed that the same sort of ignoble trifling with King David would bring company little more desirable among the audience who could listen to it with some pleasure, and possibly a little apprehension.