palimpsest
[pal-imp-sest]
- a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.
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Origin of palimpsest
1655–65; < Latin palimpsēstus < Greek palímpsēstos rubbed again (pálin again + psēstós scraped, rubbed, verbid of psân to rub smooth)
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for palimpsest
Contemporary Examples
In a figurative way, palimpsest refers to an object or place that reflects its own history.
Can you talk about how the palimpsest informs the structure of your novel?
Which, in such cases—the act or the utterance, the gesture or the text—is the palimpsest of other?
Historical Examples
His soul must be like a palimpsest with the record of nation on nation.
Dreamers of the GhettoI. Zangwill
I scanned a leaf particularly and saw that it was a palimpsest.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, CompleteMark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Nature became for him a scroll, a palimpsest with daily mutations.
Green FireFiona Macleod
A palimpsest, now in the church chest, formerly at east end of nave.
A Comprehensive History of NorwichA. D. Bayne
He had corrected the palimpsest and recalled her as the Miss Webling whom he had met in London.
The Cup of FuryRupert Hughes
palimpsest
- a manuscript on which two or more successive texts have been written, each one being erased to make room for the next
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- (of a text) written on a palimpsest
- (of a document) used as a palimpsest
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Word Origin
C17: from Latin palimpsestus parchment cleaned for reuse, from Greek palimpsēstos, from palin again + psēstos rubbed smooth, from psēn to scrape
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for palimpsest
n.
"parchment from which earlier writing has been removed to clear it for new writing," 1660s, from Latin palimpsestus, from Greek palimpsestos "scraped again," from palin "again" (see palindrome) + verbal adjective of psen "to rub smooth" (of uncertain origin).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper