
Archaeologists Just Beginning to Reveal Secrets Hidden in Ancient Manuscripts - grzm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/archaeologoists-only-just-beginning-reveal-secrets-hidden-ancient-manuscripts-180967455/?no-ist
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grzm
This motivated me to finally look up the etymology of _palimpsest_ as I never
remember how to spell it.

 _ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: via Latin from Greek palimpsēstos, from palin ‘again’
+ psēstos ‘rubbed smooth.’_

Same _palin_ as _palindrome_. I wouldn't be surprised if the Latin _pist_ (to
pound) from where we get _pestle_ is a cognate (maybe a step removed, given
the difference between rub/scrape and pound) for _psēstos_ , but I couldn't
find evidence for that in the short time I looked.

~~~
eesmith
[https://www.etymonline.com/word/pestle](https://www.etymonline.com/word/pestle)
says of pestle:

> mid-14c. (as a surname late 13c.), from Old French pestel, from Latin
> pistillum "pounder, pestle," related to pinsere "to pound," from PIE _pis-
> to-, suffixed form of root_ peis- "to crush" (source also of Sanskrit
> pinasti "pounds, crushes," pistah "anything ground, meal," Greek ptissein
> "to winnow," Old Church Slavonic pišo, pichati "to push, thrust, strike,"
> pišenica "wheat," Russian pseno "millet").

[https://www.etymonline.com/word/palimpsest](https://www.etymonline.com/word/palimpsest)
futher adds:

> verbal adjective of psen "to rub smooth," which is of uncertain origin.

