penelopize means to create a delay by undoing what has previously been done, sometimes possibly with the intention of redoing it and repeating this cycle. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “penelopize” is a great word
PENELOPIZE — [Verb] To delay or gain time by deliberately undoing completed work, typically to restart it in a cyclical, fruitless rhythm. From the proper name Penelope, the wife of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey, who delayed completing a shroud by unraveling her weaving each night, combined with the English verbal suffix -ize. Unlike "procrastinate" (which implies a passive avoidance of beginning) or "stall" (which suggests a simple cessation), to penelopize is an active, strategic labor of negation. It is the meticulous unpicking of a seam under lamplight, the scholar who deletes the polished chapter to begin anew, or the gardener who shears topiary back to a plain block—a quiet fidelity to an absence, measured in unraveled threads.
verb
- To create a delay by undoing what has previously been done, sometimes possibly with the intention of redoing it and repeating this cycle.“Diplomacy was still drawing out its lengthened thread — still weaving its long and dilatory web — still Penelopizing — when the same McLeod, the boaster in Canada of his active share in this triple crime of midnight murder, arson, and robbery, crosses over to the American side and repeats, in the hearing of Americans, and on the spot which had been the scene of his exploit, the audacious boast of ”