PENELOPIZE

PRONUNCIATION: (puh-NEL-uh-pyz)

MEANING: verb intr.: To delay or gain time to put off an undesired event.

ETYMOLOGY: From Penelope, the wife of Odysseus and mother of Telemachus in Greek mythology. She waited 20 years for her husband’s return from the Trojan War (ten years of war, and ten years on his way home). She kept her many suitors at bay by telling them she would marry them when she had finished weaving her web, a shroud for her father-in-law. She wove the web during the day only to unravel it during the night. Earliest documented use: 1780. Her name has become a synonym for a faithful wife: penelope.
________________________________

PENNELOPIZE - to be pound-foolish

PENELOPHIZE - to discourse on the vagaries of the judicial system (see also PENELOPINE)

PENELOPRIZE - what Odysseus found waiting when he finally got home