Word.ws English Dictionary

pentimento

Syllables: pen·ti·men·to/ˌpɛntɪˈmɛntəʊ/US/ˌpɛntəˈmɛntoʊ/

pentimento noun: the presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable.

pentimento: the presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an...
Image: NIRVANA2764, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

pentimento (plural pentimenti or pentimentos)

  1. The presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable.
    • The companion of this picture is the Madonna dressing the Infant, with Joseph planing a board in the back-ground; a performance though inferior in style to the former, not less original from the pentimenti still discoverable in the two principal figures.1831, Henry Fuseli, edited by John Knowles, The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, volume 3, London
    • She thought of the painting in the shop, the pentimento. Her life, the one she had so carefully planned for herself had crumbled like the paint on the surface.2012, Lorraine T. Gilman, chapter 20, in Princeton Pentimento, Bloomington, Ind.: WestBow Press, Thomas Nelson, →ISBN, page 205
    Synonyms:
    pentiment

pentimento meaning in Thai

pentimento in Thai

presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work
การแก้จิตรกรรม

Synonyms of pentimento

Forms of pentimento

pluralpentimenti
pluralpentimentos

Origin of pentimento

[Alt: A blue-tinted painting of a man's bent neck, with a faint image of a woman's face in its background] Learned borrowing from Italian pentimento (“repentance, penance, penitence; remorse; change of opinion; correction; traces of a previous image or work in an artwork”), from pentìrsi (“to repent; to regret”) + -mento (suffix forming nouns representing the actions of verbs to which it is attached). Pentìrsi is derived from Latin paenitēre, the present active infinitive of paeniteō (“to cause to repent; to repent; to be sorry, regret”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate; to hurt”).

Words formed from pentimento

Words that rhyme with pentimento

Questions about pentimento

What does pentimento mean?
Pentimento means the presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable.
What is pentimento in Thai?
Pentimento in Thai is การแก้จิตรกรรม. See Pentimento meaning in Thai.
What part of speech is pentimento?
Pentimento is a noun.
How do you pronounce pentimento?
Pentimento is pronounced /ˌpɛntɪˈmɛntəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of pentimento?
The plural of pentimento is pentimenti.

Words near pentimento in the dictionary

  1. pentille
  2. pentimal
  3. pentimals
  4. pentiment
  5. pentimenti
  6. pentimento
  7. pentimentoed
  8. pentimentos
  9. pentiments
  10. pentina
  11. pentinas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pentimento (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-pentimento.wav.

Cite this entry: “pentimento.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pentimento. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.