pentimento
/ˌpɛntɪˈmɛntəʊ/
Etymology
[Alt: A blue-tinted painting of a man's bent neck, with a faint image of a woman's face in its background]
Learned borrowing from Italian pentimento (“repentance, penance, penitence; remorse; change of opinion; correction; traces of a previous image or work in an artwork”), from pentìrsi (“to repent; to regret”) + -mento (suffix forming nouns representing the actions of verbs to which it is attached). Pentìrsi is derived from Latin paenitēre, the present active infinitive of paeniteō (“to cause to repent; to repent; to be sorry, regret”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₁- (“to hate; to hurt”).
pentimento means the presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 88 out of 100.
Why this word is great
PENTIMENTO — [Noun] A visible trace of an earlier painting or decision, painted over yet emerging from beneath the surface of a finished artwork. From the Italian pentimento ("repentance, penance"), from pentirsi ("to repent") + -mento (noun-forming suffix), with pentirsi derived from Latin paenitēre ("to repent, regret"). Unlike a palimpsest, which documents the pragmatic reuse of a scarce medium, or an underpainting, an intentional and structural foundation, a pentimento is the unintended ghost of a revoked choice. It is the spectral halo of a deleted angel, the stubborn contour of a repositioned hand, or the ghostly sail on a painted-out sea—the past's quiet, persistent argument against the finality of the present.
noun
- The presence of traces of a previous work in an artistic or literary work; especially (painting) an image which has been painted over but is still detectable.“The companion of this picture is the Madonna dressing the Infant, with Joseph planing a board in the back-ground; a performance though inferior in style to the former, not less original from the pentimenti still discoverable in the two principal figures.”