term referring to this example: "dresser", drop d, resser, put d at end, resserd, same word spelled backwards

Answer 1

I'm not sure this has an "official" name that everyone agrees on, but it may be referred to as an "internal palindrome" or "embedded palindromic cluster" -- that is "a palindromic sequence which forms PART of a word".

The link below lists a variety of palindromes, including

1) SENSUOUSNESS, which basically fits your pattern, except that the extra letter is at the end. It names this as the *longest* "embedded palindromic cluster" (at 11 letters) though I'm not entirely sure how that fits with example #2

2) GLYCYLGLYCYLGLYCYLGLYCINE , which has two19-letter internal palindromes - from the first to the last C and from the first G to the last G
http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words5.html

See also page 11 of this file:
http://wordways.com/issues/web/ASURVEYOFAMERICANINDIANLOGOLOGY.pdf

Answer 2

There are very few English words to which you can do this (assess, banana, dresser, grammar, potato, revive, uneven, voodoo are the only examples I can find), so I'd be surprised if there is a term to describe them. Why don't we have a naming contest, with each of us suggesting a catchy term, and then you can vote on it? (You might announce the contest in a separate question.) A lame example of a term for such words might be "transplants".

Answer 3

Pretty cool