Word of the Day

: November 21, 2006

palinode

noun PAL-uh-nohd

What It Means

1 : an ode or song recanting or retracting something in an earlier poem

2 : a formal retraction

palinode in Context

Oscar Wilde penned this famous palinode: "Not that I agree with everything that I have said in this essay. There is much with which I entirely disagree."

Did You Know?

Does singing someone's praises in a palinode pay off? It did in the case of Stesichorus, a Greek poet of the 6th century B.C. According to Plato, old Stesichorus was struck blind after writing a poem insulting Helen of Troy, but his sight was restored after he wrote an apologetic palinode. That poet was only too glad to apply the Greek word "palinōidia" (a compound of "palin," meaning "back" or "again," and "aeidein," meaning "to sing"). So were 16th-century English poets, who borrowed and modified the Greek term to refer to odes of their own.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.