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View synonyms for palimpsest

palimpsest

[ pal-imp-sest ]

noun

  1. a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.
  2. something that has a new layer, aspect, or appearance that builds on its past and allows us to see or perceive parts of this past: Today's towering Romanesque-Gothic structure is a palimpsest, the result of numerous additions and reconstructions.

    Most of what we actually see when we view any culture is a historical palimpsest, with traces of former times.

    Today's towering Romanesque-Gothic structure is a palimpsest, the result of numerous additions and reconstructions.

    Memory is a palimpsest that is continually being written over, but never perfectly so.



palimpsest

/ ˈpælɪmpˌsɛst /

noun

  1. a manuscript on which two or more successive texts have been written, each one being erased to make room for the next
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


adjective

  1. (of a text) written on a palimpsest
  2. (of a document) used as a palimpsest
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Other Words From

  • pal·imp·ses·tic [pal-imp-, ses, -tik] adjective
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Word History and Origins

Origin of palimpsest1

First recorded in 1655–65; from Latin palimpsēstus, from Greek palímpsēstos “rubbed again” ( pálin “again” + psēstós “scraped, rubbed,” past participle of psân “to rub smooth”)
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Word History and Origins

Origin of palimpsest1

C17: from Latin palimpsestus parchment cleaned for reuse, from Greek palimpsēstos, from palin again + psēstos rubbed smooth, from psēn to scrape
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Example Sentences

Can you talk about how the palimpsest informs the structure of your novel?

In a figurative way, palimpsest refers to an object or place that reflects its own history.

Which, in such cases—the act or the utterance, the gesture or the text—is the palimpsest of other?

The palimpsest of memory recalled with intensest vividness the Christian teachings of his childhood.

She longed to penetrate below the surface and decipher the strange palimpsest of human life.

What else than a natural and mighty palimpsest is the human brain?

This shows that naturally, and without violent agencies, the human brain is by tendency a palimpsest.

You know perhaps, masculine reader, better than I can tell you, what is a Palimpsest.

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