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

adjective

1. (of a text) written on a palimpsest
2. (of a document) used as a palimpsest

Other Words From

• pal·imp·ses·tic [pal-imp-, ses, -tik] adjective

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”)

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

Example Sentences

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

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

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• article
• document
• text