palimpsest

Meanings

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.
• 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.

Verb

• To scrape clean, as in parchment, for reuse.
• On paper: to reuse, often by erasure or change of pen direction or color. Especially fueled by Earth Day.

Related

Similar words

• codex rescriptus

Origin

• From Latin palimpsēstus, from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος.