Palʹinode (3 syl.)

A song or discourse recanting a previous one. A good specimen of the palinode is Horace, book i. ode. 16, translated by Swift. Watts has a palinode in which he retracts the praise bestowed upon Queen Anne. In the first part of her reign he wrote a laudatory poem to the queen, but he says that the latter part deluded his hopes and proved him a false prophet. Samuel Butler has also a palinode to recant what he said in a previous poem to the Hon. Edward Howard, who wrote a poem called The British Princes. (Greek, palin odē, a song again.)