Dictionary

penelopize en · VERB

Etymology

From Penelope + -ize, from the account in Homer's Odyssey of Penelope, who stalled her many suitors while she wove a shroud which she unraveled nightly to prolong the process.

Meanings

1. (rare) 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 his participation in it. 1841, Thomas Hart Benton, "Speech of Mr. Benton, of Missouri, on the Case of McLeod," p. 3 (Google preview)
   • However, there is nothing for it but to penelopize, pull to pieces, and stitch away again. 1879, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., chapter 9, in Memoir of John Lothrop Motley:
   • Yiota would not allow me to begin to discuss Yiannaras's Commentary with her until I had finished reading it. I was tempted to penelopize, to go back to the beginning and start again in order to postpone the moment of discussion. 2003, Roger Green, Hydra and the Bananas of Leonard Cohen, →ISBN, page 193:

Forms

Synonyms

all Thesaurus:procrastinate · delay · stall · procrastinate

wikipedia: Penelope · wikipedia: Homer