palimpsest

plural palimpsests

1. 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.
2. archaicMonumental brasses that have been reused by engraving of the blank back side.
3. astronomyCircular features believed to be lunar craters that have been obliterated by later volcanic activity.
4. geographyGeological features thought to be related to features or effects below the surface.
5. computingMemory that has been erased and re-written.
6. cultural studiesThe partial erasure of or superimposition on an older society or culture by a newer one.
7. Something bearing the traces of an earlier, erased form.

   But on her he did not see even the palimpsest of a smile.

   2022, Ian McEwan, Lessons, page 329

8. A text with several layers of meaning, especially pertaining to different points in time.

   I also agree there's more instrumental development that needs doing. For all we know there's a fourth layer to the palimpsest.

   1985, Carl Sagan, Contact, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 120

   2 more examples

   Miraculously, the Stasi's record of Garton Ash's years in Berlin remained intact, and in his extraordinary book The File he recalls going back to Berlin, sifting through the material, and piecing together those years for himself. The result is a palimpsest of memories, observations recorded by informants and agents, and the recollections in his own diaries at that time.

   2005, Patrick Radden Keefe, Chatter

   ... with the multilingual portmanteau words and phrases giving the text the quality of a palimpsest upon which multiple layers of textual meaning can be simultaneously detected.

   2015 April 28, Martha C. Carpentier, Joycean Legacies, Springer, →ISBN

present singular third person palimpsests · participle present palimpsesting · participle past palimpsested · past palimpsested

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

   Typically refers to a multi-layered work, e.g.: new ads covering old on a roadside sign.