Bluebeard

Pronounced: BLUE-beard, noun

Notes: I know the word, but the background was utterly new to me

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Yesterday’s word

The word palinode means

• an ode or song recanting or retracting something in an earlier poem
• a formal retraction

Background

The story goes that Stesichorus, a Greek poet in the 6th century BC, was struck blind after writing a poem insulting Helen of Troy. His sight was restored after he wrote an apologetic palinode – he used the Greek word palinōidia, from palin (back or again) with aeidein (to sing). English poets borrowed the Greek word for their own nodes.

First usage

This word came into English in the 1500s