Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A second-rate imitator or follower, especially of an artist or a philosopher.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One born after; a successor or heir.
- n. Same as epigonium.
Wiktionary
- n. A follower or disciple.
- n. An undistinguished or inferior imitator of a well known artist or their style.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an inferior imitator of some distinguished writer or artist of musician
Etymologies
- From French épigones, from Latin epigonī, from Ancient Greek ἐπίγονοι (epigonoi), plural form of ἐπίγονος (epigonos, "born after"), from ἐπιγίγνομαι (epigignomai, "I come after"), from ἐπί (epi, "upon"), from γίγνομαι (gignomai, "I become"). (Wiktionary)
- French épigone, sing. of épigones, from Greek Epigonoi, sons of the seven heroes against Thebes, from pl. of epigonos, born after : epi-, epi- + gonos, child, seed; see genə- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I'll bet you didn't know that, after reading Bérubé's latest post about thought,I now aspire to be referred to as an "epigone" of some yet-to-be-determined person.”
“He is no longer just the arch mannerist, the etiolated epigone of Michelangelo, perverse and stylised in equal measure.”
“In a curious irony of history, an epigone frequently becomes better known than his/her illustrious namesake and predecessor.”
“But then neither did Fichte and Schelling and Kant and Hegel and Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and Heidegger; but their differences are family feuds, and the same is true of their "Catholic" epigone.”
“The celebrated philosophical essays ( "The Myth of Sisyphus," The Rebel) are the work of an extraordinarily talented and literate epigone.”
“Carmela was trying to get her Linux booted Treo 700's calendaring app to work in a Epeus 'epigone way: "This means you can take hCalendar and hCard data from the web into Outlook, into MSN's Live calendar application, and connect other apps data into and out of the browser in a nice user-obvious way.”
“I wrote a long paper last fall which you can find here in which I make out Gore as an epigone of Heidegger.”
“And so the friend referred to in my previous post & other NYT epigones would say who am I (the NYT epigone) gonna believe, the NYT with all its resources or you (i.e., me)?”
Jeffrey Rosen made quite a few errors in his NYT Magazine article about John Paul Stevens.
“That sunnily amiable and almost indecently fertile epigone" as Thomas”
The Idealised and Naturalistic View of Reality: Early 20th Century German Literature Laureates
“His current epigone, of course, is Bill O'Reilly, who's baleful rather than abject — and whose surly vox-pop shtick is as much a performance as actor Ed O'Neill's was.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘epigone’.
-
phrontistery - e
from phrontistery.info
eagre, earing, earwig, easement, eau-de-nil, ebberman, ebeneous, ?boulement, ebriection, ?brillade, ebrious, ebullioscope and 616 more...
-
avfordomd's list
lexicon
copacetic, amiable, philanthropic, misanthropic, gregarious, vehement, parcel, congregate, paucity, passel, multitudinous, pulchritudinous and 98 more...
-
Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
-
fancy essay words
hiatus, ontology, exegesis, hermeneutics, dialectics, demiurge, ascertain, contention, eschatological, synecdoche, centripetal, centrifugal and 96 more...
-
Words cool peeps use
These are words I have overheard, or over-read, or had whispered in my ear :-)
loquacious, zygote, epigone, kismet, philotheoparoptesism, venal, imbroglio, ephemeral, smarmy, machination, callipygian, lexicon and 8 more...
-
ubermensch's list
THE list
behoove, germane, imbroglio, pervicacious, squalid, bombastic, pudendum, chimera, crapulous, i-know-huh, ersatz, ennui and 8 more...
-
difficult words
ordure, tatterwallop, callipygian, odious, colophon, cynosure, hardener, emollience, valetudinarian, demonym, volage, polysemantic and 256 more...
-
All The Words
I enjoy collecting words, for I have no fear of them ever running out.
anacoluthon, defenestration, hypnopomp, hypnagogue, idioglossia, panopticon, tatterdemalion, abalone, caltrop, miasma, paroxysm, smalt and 475 more...
-
Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
-
thekatespanos's list
pomposity, gaggle, scintilla, lemming, bilk, vanquish, conflate, plenary, verisimilitude, perspicacious, rattletrap, obdurate and 325 more...
-
Worthy Wordie
words learnt from the Internet
unthink, meme, logophile, netiquette, onomatopoeia, singularity, oed, johnson's dictionary, man friday, lewis carroll, ontology, pro bono and 143 more...
-
Consider the Lobster
By David Foster Wallace
percussive, discursive, lugubrious, docent, assiduously, berm, wag, bonmot, imbroglio, telegraph, fissile, rube and 220 more...
-
collection
sanguine, vie, antebellum, glacial, treacly, iconoclast, lissom, anathema, serendipity, parsimonious, histrionic, contemptuous and 279 more...
-
summer words 2009
how many words can I make mine this summer?
largess, hoyden, catholic, fornicatress, quean, slattern, bildungsroman, sybaritic, descresent, nodus, frittle, callipygian and 529 more...
-
ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
-
Writer, Writer!
columnist, contributor, novelist, poet, wordsmith, stringer, freelancer, ghostwriter, journalist, correspondent, essayist, speechwriter and 99 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for epigone.
Casey Heh. Yeah. Total douche bag. Sep 18, 2011
sionnach that Vermishank. What an unctuous bastard. Sep 18, 2011
Casey "In another twist to the myth, his Head of Department, the ageless and loathsome Vermishank, was not a plodding epigone but an exceptional bio-thaumaturge, who had nixed Isaac's research less because it was unorthodox than because it was going nowhere." From Perdido Street Station by China Meiville. Sep 18, 2011
A.O.Moss I love this word. Dec 8, 2010
knitandpurl "the very obvious references to eero saarinen and S.O.M. may have secured jacobsen's name as a cool modernist at the time, but they also made him look like an epigone with a deft hand at furniture design, a view of jacobsen you can still meet, not least here in denmark."
See this photo by seier + seier on Flickr.
Oct 10, 2010
quotato The "singer" Taylor Swift is a epigone of Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks... Feb 22, 2010
bilby Come back, all is forgiven. Oct 17, 2009
oroboros Cf. epitome. Sep 7, 2009
trivet I'm no wordinista - yoink away. Sep 12, 2007
reesetee If it did, you'd at least be elegantly named. :-) Sep 12, 2007
colleen If I copy this word from you, does that make me one? Sep 12, 2007
reesetee Great word, trivet! Sep 10, 2007
trivet A second-rate imitator or follower, especially of an artist or a philosopher.
French épigone, from Greek Epigonoi, sons of the seven heroes against Thebes, from pl. of epigonos, born after. Sep 9, 2007