epitaph
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See also: Epitaph
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
Old French epitafe, from Late Latin epitaphium (“eulogy”), from Ancient Greek ἐπιτάφιος (epitáphios, “relating to a funeral”), from ἐπί (epí, “over”) + τάφος (táphos, “tomb”).
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
epitaph (plural epitaphs)
- An inscription on a gravestone in memory of the deceased.
- 1909, Eric Parker, chapter XXIII, in Highways and Byways in Surrey[1]:
- The church itself, or at all events the squat and tiny tower, has not altered much since Lamb saw it. But the epitaphs have gone. Search among the ivies and yews of the shady little churchyard will discover a number of flat, weatherworn slabs of stone, but the verses and the signatures have vanished.
- A poem or other short text written in memory of a deceased person.
- 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Honest Objects of Love”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
- Nam vinci in amore turpissimum putant, not only living, but when their friends are dead, with tombs and monuments, nenias, epitaphs, elegies, inscriptions, pyramids, obelisks, statues, images, pictures, histories, poems, annals, feasts, anniversaries, many ages after (as Plato's scholars did) they will parentare still, omit no good office that may tend to the preservation of their names, honours, and eternal memory.
Translations[edit]
inscription on a gravestone
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commemorative poem or other text
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Verb[edit]
epitaph (third-person singular simple present epitaphs, present participle epitaphing, simple past and past participle epitaphed)
- (intransitive) To write or speak after the manner of an epitaph.
- 1606, Joseph Hall, Heaven upon Earth:
- The Commons in their speeches epitaph upon him […] "He lived as a wolf and died as a dog."
- (transitive) To commemorate by an epitaph.
- 1592, Gabriel Harvey, Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets:
- Let me rather be epitaphed the inventor of the English Hexameter.
See also[edit]
Categories:
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Late Latin
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English verbs
- English intransitive verbs
- English transitive verbs
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