Definition of Palimpsest
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
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How can palimpsest be used in a sentence?
So rich a palimpsest is French civilization, so varied is
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nullBut this palimpsest of a concert hall is the better for it.
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nullCall it palimpsest, call it reinscription, call it Doris ...
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nullClose on Indy's face, a palimpsest of cynicism and moral fury.
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nulla palimpsest is my brain; such a palimpsest, O reader! is yours.
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nullIn Unter der Haut she claims that memories are like a palimpsest.
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nullMemory becomes a palimpsest, like a map of different countries, continents and cultures.
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nullAll history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary.
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nullThe parchment, known as a palimpsest, contains the only known copies of some of Archimedes' works.
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nullThe truth is, like any palimpsest awaiting a scribe, Twitter's value depends on those who choose to play.
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nullThe graphical front-end for DeviceKit is called palimpsest and provides several nice management capabilities.
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nullAn obliterated manuscript written over again is called a palimpsest, and the man who can restore and read it a paleographist.
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nullSo an architectural palimpsest is the ghostly remains of other buildings or parts of buildings that are still apparent on existing buildings.
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nullHe examined without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist who is deciphering a palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still exists in nature.
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nullOr it is a kind of palimpsest of such complexity that we can and must write anything we like upon its canvas to help to explain it to ourselves.
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nullThe description of this granite palimpsest is best given in Mr. Petrie's own words, as written in his weekly report at the time of the discovery:
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nullCodex may be called a kind of palimpsest, in which we have some portions of the original manuscript, and the rest overlaid with the later revision.
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nullThe pages of the older books became the sheaths of a newer one, thus a palimpsest which is pronounced PAL-imp-sest and is Greek for ''rubbed again''.
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nullIn this way the brain of man has become a kind of palimpsest upon which, and over the writings of Nature, superstition has scribbled her countless lies.
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nullI discovered the stubborn raconteur whose work is the interminable re-write, the palimpsest, of a few scenes from a past that refuses to remain in the past.
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nullNow we have a Newsday piece on the bomb plot which functions as a sort of palimpsest: The surface text shows hints of a more important tale which lies beneath.
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nullThe wind will soon finish erasing these marks, blending them with the remaining stand ruts into a smooth, undulating palimpsest prepared for the next day's imprints.
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nullMote Prime is planet which has become a palimpsest, mutely testifying to the endless cycles of technological development and collapse experienced by the trapped Moties.
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nullArchivists at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore used multispectral imaging to read this palimpsest, or text that had been scraped off and written over by a later scribe.
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nullAt the very end of this lane, years of graffiti and street stickers have built up like a Day-Glo medieval palimpsest, presenting a shifting and organic gallery of inner-city street art.
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nullMad Men joins a long list of books, television shows, and movies -- Ex-Lady, Bewitched, Nothing To Lose, Putney Swope, How To Get Ahead in Advertising -- that have used the industry and the ad guy as palimpsest.
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nullMuch of the prestige bump is attributable to Spellbound, the 2002 documentary that followed contestants from the 72nd bee as they negotiated such linguistic land mines as "palimpsest," "heleoplankton" and "akropodion."
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nullIt is of great scientific interest because it concentrates in a palimpsest of successive eruptive and effusive landscapes a wide range of geological and magmatic features characteristic of such mid-plate oceanic islands.
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nullIf you've been in a Planet Hollywood almost anywhere in the world, you've seen his work in all its scintillating, multiplex glory, a palimpsest of figures and graphics at different scales, flickering to the urgent rhythms of the movies.
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nullBut, as he passed on to talk of what he thought would result from the Communist method of tackling that problem, and spoke of the eventual disappearance of political parties, I felt I was trying to read a kind of palimpsest of the Economist and
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nullIn late afternoon, in spring or fall, it is crossed by deep black shadows that can seem almost infinite, while in winter the shadows become feathery as the sun moves through the palimpsest of branches, brushing the stippled surface of the frozen ground.
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nullOur morning newspaper nowadays is a kind of palimpsest, and one cannot help wondering how many dead volumes, how many hopes and disappointments, lie buried under that surface made smooth for the Telegraph (sole author who is sure of readers) to write upon.
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nullIt had turned that leaf from the tablets of my memory into a kind of palimpsest, so that I could no longer quite make out the old handwriting for the new, which would not be obliterated, and these were confused lines it was hard to read between -- with all my skill!
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nullThe Belgian-born film-maker Lucas Belvaux is best known for his 2002 Trilogie, a three-part film more palimpsest than trilogy, in which the same overlapping events are viewed first as a thriller, then as a romantic farce and finally as a melodrama on the theory that our lives are like genre movies.
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nullGazing at the image, which seemed no more than a faint palimpsest of her former self, she began slowly and deliberately to demolish her carefully constructed defences and let the turbulent past, first like a swelling stream and then a river in spate, break through unresisted and take possession of her mind.
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Tips for Using palimpsest in a Sentence
You may have an easier time writing sentences with palimpsest if you know what words are likely to come before or after it, or simply what words are often found in the same sentence.
Frequent Predecessors
Words that often come before palimpsest in sentences. For example: "a palimpsest" or "the palimpsest"
- a
- the
- of
- by
- as
- this
- in
- and
- or
- archimedes
Frequent Successors
Words that often come after palimpsest in sentences. For example: "palimpsest of" or "palimpsest ."
- of
- .
- book
- in
- is
- that
- on
- and
- for
- to
Associated Words
Words that aren't necessarily predecessors or successors, but are often found in the same sentence.
- uncial
- overwritten
- lectionary
- archimedes
- illegible
- codex
- homilies
- minuscule
- deciphered
- syriac
Alternate Definitions
- palimpsest (noun) - a parchment or other writing-material from which one writing has been erased or rubbed out to make room for another; hence, the new writing or manuscript upon such a parchment
- palimpsest (noun) - any inscribed slat, etc., particularly a monumental brass, which has been turned and engraved with new inscriptions and devices on the reverse side