PALIMPSEST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does palimpsest mean? 

• PALIMPSEST (noun)
  The noun PALIMPSEST has 1 sense:

1. 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

  Familiarity information: PALIMPSEST used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PALIMPSEST (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("palimpsest" is a kind of...):

holograph; manuscript (handwritten book or document)

 Context examples 

His mirror of vision was silver-clear, a flashing, dazzling palimpsest of imagery.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“Well, Watson, it’s as well we have not to turn out to-night,” said Holmes, laying aside his lens and rolling up the palimpsest.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Holmes and I sat together in silence all the evening, he engaged with a powerful lens deciphering the remains of the original inscription upon a palimpsest, I deep in a recent treatise upon surgery.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“It will be harder to read now than that palimpsest. Well, well, it can’t be helped. What did you do, Hopkins, after you had made certain that you had made certain of nothing?”

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)