pentimento
Americannoun
plural
pentimentinoun
-
the revealing of a painting or part of a painting that has been covered over by a later painting
-
the part of a painting thus revealed
Etymology
Origin of pentimento
1900–05; < Italian, equivalent to penti ( re ) to repent (< Latin paenitēre to regret) + -mento -ment
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The yellow title casts a grayish shadow within the turquoise, a pentimento whose sign of an earlier paint layer signals a stratum of history.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 1, 2022
There are holes drilled into the top and the pentimento outline of where the displaced sculpture once stood.
From Washington Post • Aug. 23, 2022
It's so common that art historians and conservators have a word for it: pentimento.
From Salon • Nov. 11, 2021
The pentimento of the teenage Blasey made her seem achingly vulnerable.
From New York Times • Sep. 29, 2018
It’s as though the image of the first baby Vincent emerges from under Vincent's, a pentimento uncovered, and in their parents’ eyes the portrait of that hoped-for “good boy” melds with Theo's.
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
