Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. An inscription, as on a statue or building.
- n. A motto or quotation, as at the beginning of a literary composition, setting forth a theme.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An inscription cut or impressed on stone, metal, or other permanent material, as distinguished from a writing in manuscript, etc.; specifically, in archaeology, a terse inscription on a building, tomb, monument, or statue, denoting its use or appropriation, and sometimes incorporated in its scheme of ornamentation.
- n. A superscription or title at the beginning of a book, a treatise, or a part of a book.
- n. In lit., a citation from some author, or a sentence framed for the purpose, placed at the commencement of a work or of one of its separate divisions; a motto.
- To inscribe an epigraph on.
Wiktionary
- n. an inscription, especially one on a building etc
- n. a literary quotation placed at the beginning of a book etc
- n. mathematics (of a function) the set of all points lying on or above its graph
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Any inscription set upon a building; especially, one which has to do with the building itself, its founding or dedication.
- n. (Literature) A citation from some author, or a sentence framed for the purpose, placed at the beginning of a work or of its separate divisions; a motto.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a quotation at the beginning of some piece of writing
- n. an engraved inscription
Etymologies
- Greek epigraphē, from epigraphein, to write on; see epigram. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The epigraph is by Javier Marías, who could probably discuss this subject much better, since I consider this a difficult question.”
A Conversation with Rabih Alameddine, author of The Hakawati
“My epigraph is similarly striking: When language fails us, when we fail each other there is no exorcism.”
“I did check, wondering if it should be an "e" as in "epigraph". posted by Hal Duncan | 2: 46 PM”
“Note 65: The epigraph is from a local song, "A Woman's Tongue Will Never Take a Rest," collected in Cape Broyle in 1968.”
“The other epigraph is from a handbook of speech which points out that in a heightened state of emotion people speak at a rate of a hundred and sixty words a minute.”
“The novels epigraph is taken from Jane Austens Northanger Abbey, in which a naïve young woman, caught up in fantasies from the Gothic fiction she loves to read, imagines that her host in an English country house is a villain.”
“Textually, the poem carries an epigraph from the seventeenth-century”
“It is epideictic poetry in its panegyric mode that accounts for The Sceptic's epigraph from a funeral oration by seventeenth-century French cleric Bossuet – specifically, his oration for a Princess endangered by a libertine and sceptical culture.”
“It begins with an epigraph from the English essayist William Hazlitt which reads, "I think myself into love, and I dream myself out of it.”
“Anzaldúa's quote in the epigraph is a call to not forget about the men.”
The Huffington Post: Adrián Aldaba: Mi Jefe and the Ivory Tower: A Close Reading of Familial Ties
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘epigraph’.
-
Word Words
This used to be my nym list, but there are so many words about words, I think it's time to expand and open.
acronym, antonym, aptronym, autoantonym, autonym, bacronym, capitonym, contranym, contronym, eponym, exonym, heteronym and 120 more...
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
Everything's better with a pig in it
So get your keech spread and let's grill.
trudgepig, humblepig, pigsney, piggy pox, pigment, hedgepiglet, higgledy piggledy, piggley winks, athlete's pig foot, pigmy, pigeon, piggy bank and 69 more...
-
graphs
lithograph, homograph, topography, psychogeography, typography, pictograph, polygraph, cinematography, stenographer, cartography, choreographer, oceanographer and 24 more...
-
words
Interleaved with the first story is an account....
interleaved, propinquity, archetypal, trenchant, cosmopolitanism, dichotomy, diorama, prodigious, epigraph
-
Vega's Logophile Dictionary
Words I've heard/read in use, words being learnt, words that I want to eventually use in everyday language, words that are high-brow and elitist and scholarly and obscure, words that display the wo...
parsimonious, torpor, recalcitrant, plebeian, vitriol, gumption, augur, aestival, celerity, diaphanous, farrago, nonpareil and 287 more...
-
eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
-
Cessilind's Words
dvorak, ingenuity, cessation, oblique, transverse, anvilicious, evoke, verisimilitude, integrity, strega, recumbent, depression and 164 more...
-
jagosaurus's favorites
Words I like mostly because of the way they sound and feel.
ticonderoga, petulance, snark, estimable, chickahominy, feline, gezellig, gneiss, shit, willy-nilly, shelter, coda and 366 more...
-
Mollusque's miscellany
A mixture of words that I like or have commented on, along with ones parked here so they'd be listed somewhere or remind me of lists I want to make.
oranger, monographer, preoccupied, bu, bobization, coinventor, tetrapyloctomy, borgmannian, suspercollate, manhug, mancrush, obituarist and 604 more...
-
Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
-
cutting words
sarcasm, sarx, sarcoptic, syssarcosis, shrew, shrewd, screed, scred, shroud, scroll, scrod, scrutiny and 326 more...
-
Interesting words
ineffable, effable, immutable, amorphous, parochial, salient, ascertain, circumspect, congenial, coeval, aversion, edification and 117 more...
-
AP Rhetorical Devices
asyndeton, aphorism, polysyndeton, characterize, antagonist, antihero, audience, diction, foil, mood, motif, protagonist and 153 more...
-
Verbal Advantage List
ostensible, paraphrase, digress, uncanny, candor, morose, adept, saturated, pragmatic, congenial, capricious, blatant and 487 more...
-
Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2050 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for epigraph.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.