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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A representative or perfect example of a class or type: "He is seen . . . as the epitome of the hawkish, right-of-center intellectual” ( Paul Kennedy).
  2. n. A brief summary, as of a book or article; an abstract.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. An abridgment; a brief summary or abstract of a subject, or of a more extended exposition of it; a compendium containing the substance or principal matters of a book or other writing.
  2. n. Hence Anything which represents another or others in a condensed or comprehensive form.
  3. n. Synonyms Compendium, Compend, etc. See abridgment.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The embodiment or encapsulation of.
  2. n. A representative example.
  3. n. The height; the best.
  4. n. A brief summary.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A work in which the contents of a former work are reduced within a smaller space by curtailment and condensation; a brief summary; an abridgement.
  2. n. A compact or condensed representation of anything; something possessing conspicuously or to a high degree the qualities of a class.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a standard or typical example
  2. n. a brief abstract (as of an article or book)

Etymologies

  1. Latin epitomē, a summary, from Greek, an abridgment, from epitemnein, to cut short : epi-, epi- + temnein, to cut; see tem- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “THE Bible contains the history of the human race in epitome; is the mirror in which every age and every generation may see reflected its own features and complexion.”

    Moses and Joshua

  • “But when preparing my Mss. for print I found the text incomplete, many of the stories being given in epitome and not a few ruthlessly mutilated with head or feet wanting.”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night

  • “If boutique isn't your preference, you may like the second hotel, Le Royal Monceau. 149 rooms and designed by Phillippe Stark, this hotel is what I'd call the epitome of Parisian luxury.”

    The Huffington Post: Amy Chan: Top 10 Restaurants in Paris on Any Budget

  • “And that night and the next and the next, I wrote "Gentleman Adventurers," which the critics called the epitome of all that is balladesque.”

    The Kempton-Wace Letters

  • “The epitome was the Insull group, headquartered in Chicago but with tentacles extending into thirty states—an unsettling octopus of capital and influence.”

    Simon & Schuster: Colossus

  • “Epicycles worked on paper, sort of, but they did a much better job at keeping astronomers respectable and their models intact than at describing the actual movements of heavenly bodies; they have come to be known as the epitome of bad science.”

    Simon & Schuster: MANUFACTURING DEPRESSION

  • “Universally known as the epitome of evil, Satan appears throughout the Bible in various guises—a cunning serpent, a fallen angel, a threatening demon.”

    Simon & Schuster: Mysteries & Intrigues of the Bible

  • “It fell to Clyde Wells, whom House described as the epitome of the 'sensible' good government approach of the "official class leaders", to implement the task force report.”

    Archive 2006-04-01

  • “She is the "epitome" of being bailed out for her nonsense - and will soon be too big to fail if the Republicans don't wake up soon and realize that the country has changed.”

    Palin rallies Tea Partiers in Boston

  • “Why would we want someone who is the 'epitome' of the Republican Party to run?”

    New group tries to convince Cheney to run in 2012

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  • trochee My pronunciation of this word was saved by Flava Flav, who explained :
    not rhymin'/ for the sake of riddlin' / I'm the epitome / of Public Enemy

    rhyming with 'enemy' saves me every time I go to pronounce this word. Sep 30, 2010
  • littleclaw I still say it that exact same way, ep-ee-toam! Jun 26, 2008
  • reesetee Trust me, sionnach. There are other families as warped as yours. ;-) Feb 16, 2007
  • sionnach I pronounced this as three syllables, ep-ee-tome, rhyming with roam, for far longer than I care to admit. A consequence of meeting words in print long before one ever hears them in conversation. The wrong pronunciation was immediately gleefully adopted by everyone else in the family and is still the one we use when talking among ourselves. As far as I can determine, other people may not have families quite as warped as mine, but a lot of folks admit to having had some initial difficulty in pronouncing epitome. Feb 16, 2007

‘epitome’ has been looked up 3555 times, loved by 11 people, added to 139 lists, commented on 4 times, and has a Scrabble score of 11.