Withenay’s Wednesday Word: Boustrophedon

Welcome to Withenay’s Wednesday Word: a wandering, wondering dip into the dictionary. The topics are always varied and rarely predictable!

boustrophedon (adjective and adverb)
(of ancient writing) alternately form right to left and from left to right)
from Greek boustrophedon, turning like ploughing oxen 

The principal of this word is that writing on the page doesn’t necessarily go left to right (as

.yaw hcae og senil etanretla tub (werbeH ni sa) tfel ot thgir ron (hsilgnE ni

Additionally, the reversed lines usually have the letters transposed as well, mirror images of

.tsop golb siht ni taht etacilper tonnac I yletanutrofnu tub, mron thgir-ot-tfel rieht

Some streets are numbered in a boustrophedonic fashion. There is also a mathematical

srebmun of ecneuqes eno spam hcihw mrofsnart nodehportsuob eht dellac erudecorp

onto another. It looks pretty, if you can understand this picture from Wikipedia.

As with so many things, it is easy if you know how.