‖ Penelope
(pɪˈnɛləpiː)
[a. Gr. Πηνελόπη (Herodotus), in Homer's Odyssey Πηνελόπεια.]
1. Name of the wife of Ulysses in ancient Greek legend, who, during her husband's long absence, unravelled every night the web she had woven during the day, and thus put off the suitors whose offers she had promised to entertain when the web should be finished; hence (after Latin), allusively for ‘chaste wife’.
| 1581 J. Bell Haddon's Answ. Osor. 374 b, A Strumpet doth behave her selfe more modestly amongest us Osorius, then Penelope doth amongest you. 1581 G. Pettie tr. Guazzo's Civ. Conv. iii. (1586) 136 b, My concubine is a great deale more modest, than thy Penelope. 1835 J. Batman in Cornwallis New World (1859) I. App. 378 Our absent Penelopes were, doubtless, dreaming. |
2. Zool. A genus of gallinaceous birds of Central and South America, typical of the subfamily Penelopinæ or Guans: so named 1786 by Merrem.
| [Cf. 1678 Ray Willughby's Ornith. 375 The common Wigeon or Whewer: Penelope Aldrovandi, tom. 3. p. 218, lin. 30.] 1836 Macgillivray tr. Humboldt's Trav. xxiv. 388 There is a great variety of gallinaceous birds..such as the turkey, the hocco or curassow, penelopes and pheasants. |
3. attrib. Penelope canvas, a double-thread canvas used for needle tapestry work. Also
absol.| 1882 Caulfeild & Saward Dict. Needlework 387/2 Penelope canvas, a description of cotton canvas made for Berlin woolwork, in which the strands run in couples, vertically and horizontally, thus forming squares containing four threads each. 1895 Montgomery Ward Catal. 124/3 Java Canvas... Penelope Canvas. 1926–7 Army & Navy Stores Catal. 663/3 Canvas for wool work and embroidery... White ‘Penelope’. 1975 Islander (Victoria, B.C.) 9 Mar. 7/2 The other type of needlepoint canvas is known as Penelope which is made up of two pairs of vertical and horizontal threads. |
Hence
Penelopean (
pɪnɛləʊˈpiːən)
a., of or pertaining to, or resembling the web or weaving, or time-gaining policy of Penelope;
Penelopine (
pɪˈnɛləpaɪn)
a. Zool., belonging to the subfamily Penelopinæ of gallinaceous birds;
Peˈnelopize v. intr. to do like Penelope.
| 1837 Beddoes Let. May, Poems (1851) p. ciii, And so I weave my *Penelopean web, and rip it up again. 1903 Contemp. Rev. Apr. 590 The deliberate and Penelopean acts of many of his advisers. |
| 1853 Motley in O. W. Holmes Life x. (1878) 72 There is nothing for it but to *penelopize, pull to pieces and stitch away again. 1841 Congress. Globe 27th Congress 1 Sess. App. 43/2 Diplomacy was still drawing out its lengthened thread—still weaving its long and dilatory web—still Penelopizing. 1956 ‘H. MacDiarmid’ Stony Limits 39 Nor twissel-tongued can we penelopise. |