PALIMPSEST • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Palimpsest

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

Palimpsest

noun

A manuscript (usually written on papyrus or parchment) on which more than one text has been written with the earlier writing incompletely erased and still visible.

See images of 'Palimpsest'

Etymology of 'Palimpsest'

Share |

"Palimpsest" Quotes from Famous Books

... seriously to be deplored, except in so far as the second and fifth books may have preserved real information on the early history of the Roman State and the development of Roman jurisprudence. Large fragments were recovered early in the present century from a palimpsest, itself incomplete, on which the work of Cicero had been expunged to make room for the commentary of St. Augustine on the Psalms. The famous Somnium Scipionis, with which (in imitation of the vision of Er in ...

— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail

... radiant as his seas, Starry from haunts of his Familiars nine, Glorious Maeonides. Yea, I beheld thee, and behold thee yet: Thou hast forgotten, but can I forget? The accents of thy pure and sovereign tongue, Are they not ever goldenly impressed On memory's palimpsest? I see the wizard locks like night that hung, I tread the floor thy hallowing feet have trod; I see the hands a nation's lyre that strung, The eyes that looked through life ...

— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson

Words linked to "Palimpsest" : manuscript, holograph