Semordnilaps

New word (for us at least). We encountered it for the first time in Saturday's New York Times crossword puzzle. 21D. This is a debut entry, although its singular form appeared once before. “Words that form other words when read backward” are SEMORDNILAPS, which have a kinship to palindromes, which read the same forward and backward, of course. As you might have noticed, the singular form, “semordnilap,” is palindromes spelled backward. Martin Gardner, a prolific writer and magician, coined the term. Examples of palindromes and semordnilaps at Big Dave's Crossword Blog. See Wikipedia for a list of synonyms.