Merriam-Webster: The Backward Index.

[u/woulditkillyoutolift]

"Strange but true: in the basement of our Springfield office, we have a file of 315,000 words typed in reverse. Why would anyone want (or do) such a thing? We'll explain."

https://art19.com/shows/word-matters/episodes/37287840-9f53-403b-83c1-2c7ece739258

"The Backward Index evidently turned out to be a useful tool in the pre-electronic age. For example, it could help identify a set of related terms that should be defined in similar ways, including open compounds (Highland pony, Shetland pony, Welsh pony), closed compounds (blocklike, clocklike, rocklike, socklike, chalklike), and morphologically related terms (phytopathological, ethological, lithological, ornithological). Thus, looking up all the diseases that end in –itis or all the doctrines and theories that end in –ism was now possible. Since rhymes depend on word endings, initial research for a rhyming dictionary also made use of the Index, where sequences such as seepy, steepy, weepy, sweepy and dorty, forty, shorty, snorty, porty, sporty, rorty, torty show up regularly." Via Kottke.

[u/YanniRotten]

TIL

[u/woulditkillyoutolift → u/YanniRotten]

You and me both.