palimpsest
[pal-imp-sest]
noun
a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text.
RELATED CONTENT
palimpsest
Find new words to share every day with Dictionary.com's Word of the Day. Discover the definition, pronunciation, and origin of uncommon words plus more!
READ MORE
An exciting new addition to ancient history? How one important book was uncovered from within another book.
After years of research, the Archimedes’ Palimpsest is now on display at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. Like anything more than a thousand years old, it has an intriguing story to tell. But what’s a palimpsest? This confusing word has a very particular definition. A palimpsest is a text written on parchment, vellum or sometimes papyrus that is covered over by another text. …
READ MORE
RELATED WORDS
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. 2019
Examples from the Web for palimpsest
Contemporary Examples of palimpsest
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 of palimpsest
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
noun
adjective
Word Origin for palimpsest
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
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper