ˈdip(ˌ)tik, -_tēk noun
( -s )
Etymology: Late Latin diptycha, plural, from Greek, from neuter plural of diptychos folded, doubled, from di- + -ptychos (akin to Greek ptychē fold, layer)
1. : a 2-leaved hinged tablet folding together to protect writing on its waxed surfaces used by the ancient Romans for everyday writing
2. usually plural
[Medieval Latin diptychum list of the dead for whom prayers were said at mass, from Late Latin diptycha, plural, 2-leaved tablet]
a. : a 2-leaved tablet containing in one part the names of living and in the other those of dead persons commemorated in eucharistic services
b. : the catalog or list of such persons
c. : the intercession in the course of which the commemoration was made
3. : a picture or series of pictures (as an altarpiece) painted on two tablets connected by hinges — compare triptych
4.
a. : a literary work consisting of two contrasting parts (as a narrative telling the same story from two opposing points of view)
a diptych , a pastoral in which the author narrates the birth of Christ … first as it has impressed the rich countryman Asveer, then as it has been seen by the skeptic Nicodemus — François Closset
b. : any work made up of two matching parts treating complementary or contrasting pictorial phases of one general topic
the first volume of a diptych Vegetation and Flora of the Sonoran Desert — F.E.Egler
[s]diptych.jpg[/s] [
diptych 2
]