palimpsest
UK/ˈpælɪmpsɛst/
palimpsest noun: a manuscript or document that has been erased or scraped clean, for reuse of the paper, parchment, vellum, or other medium on which it was written.
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Noun
palimpsest (plural palimpsests)
- A manuscript or document that has been erased or scraped clean, for reuse of the paper, parchment, vellum, or other medium on which it was written.
- Monumental brasses that have been reused by engraving of the blank back side.
- Circular features believed to be lunar craters that have been obliterated by later volcanic activity.
- Geological features thought to be related to features or effects below the surface.
- Memory that has been erased and re-written.
- The partial erasure of or superimposition on an older society or culture by a newer one.
- Something bearing the traces of an earlier, erased form.
- But on her he did not see even the palimpsest of a smile.2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 329
- A text with several layers of meaning, especially pertaining to different points in time.
- I also agree there's more instrumental development that needs doing. For all we know there's a fourth layer to the palimpsest.1985, Carl Sagan, Contact, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 120
- Miraculously, the Stasi's record of Garton Ash's years in Berlin remained intact, and in his extraordinary book The File he recalls going back to Berlin, sifting through the material, and piecing together those years for himself. The result is a palimpsest of memories, observations recorded by...2005, Patrick Radden Keefe, Chatter
Verb
palimpsest (third-person singular simple present palimpsests, present participle palimpsesting, simple past and past participle palimpsested)
palimpsest meaning in Arabic
palimpsest in Arabic
- manuscript scraped clean for reuse
- طِرْس ṭirs
Examples of palimpsest in a sentence
- The result is a palimpsest of memories, observations recorded by informants and agents, and the recollections in his own diaries at that time.2005, Patrick Radden Keefe, Chatter:
- ... with the multilingual portmanteau words and phrases giving the text the quality of a palimpsest upon which multiple layers of textual meaning can be simultaneously detected.2015 April 28, Martha C. Carpentier, Joycean Legacies, Springer, →ISBN:
Synonyms of palimpsest
- codex rescriptus
Forms of palimpsest
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | palimpsests |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | palimpsests |
| present participle | palimpsesting |
| past participle | palimpsested |
| past | palimpsested |
Origin of palimpsest
From Latin palimpsēstus, from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος (palímpsēstos, “scraped again”).
Words formed from palimpsest
Questions about palimpsest
- What does palimpsest mean?
- Palimpsest means a manuscript or document that has been erased or scraped clean, for reuse of the paper, parchment, vellum, or other medium on which it was written.
- What is palimpsest in Arabic?
- Palimpsest in Arabic is طِرْس (ṭirs). See Palimpsest meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use palimpsest in a sentence?
- The result is a palimpsest of memories, observations recorded by informants and agents, and the recollections in his own diaries at that time.
- What part of speech is palimpsest?
- Palimpsest can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce palimpsest?
- Palimpsest is pronounced /ˈpælɪmpsɛst/ (UK).
- What is the plural of palimpsest?
- The plural of palimpsest is palimpsests.
Words near palimpsest in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: palimpsest (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-palimpsest.ogg.
Cite this entry: “palimpsest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/palimpsest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.