Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Epic; of epic or heroic character; like an epic.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Epic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun literature Any book containing 2 or more epics.
  • noun poetry In epic poetry, a lengthy, revered narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to epic literature; epic; having qualities of epics.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective constituting or having to do with or suggestive of a literary epic

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

epic + -al

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Examples

  • His longer poems (miscalled epical) have no more intimate bond of union than their more or less immediate relation to his own personality.

    Among My Books Second Series James Russell Lowell 1855

  • _ The poetic instinct -- one might call it "epical" or

    Visions and Revisions A Book of Literary Devotions John Cowper Powys 1917

  • One of the greatest passages in Thomas Hardy's epical poem, The Dynasts, contemplates the effect of Waterloo on the most innocent and unwilling of the battle's participants, the fowl and insects and creatures of the earth who are confused if not slain by the combat around them, below them, above them.

    GreenCine Daily: PIFF Dispatch. 5. 2007

  • King and the Clown, on the other hand, is a polished, colorful, epical tale set in Korea's distant past.

    GreenCine Daily: PIFF Dispatch. 1. 2007

  • Without doubt, producing such movies of epical dimension entails a lot of capital.

    Tempers Flare At the 74th Art Stampede Winner of the Prince Claus Award 2006 2008

  • Without doubt, producing such movies of epical dimension entails a lot of capital.

    Archive 2008-03-01 Winner of the Prince Claus Award 2006 2008

  • Finally, it is also important to recognize that as literary critics we are invested in believing that ideologies primarily spread through cultures by means of print media, and for many centuries we have deceived ourselves that male-authored, canonical poetry, preferably epical or lyrical, spread those ideologies most effectively.

    Talking About Virtue: Paisiello's 'Nina,' Paër's 'Agnese,' and the Sentimental Ethos 2005

  • As my grandfather claimed even on his deathbed, "... we have seen, for ourselves, an epical cosmic battle with Satanic families of evil (Cheney's at one point) for these last 1975 years."

    Jefferson on, God, Freedom, Arms, and Government 2007

  • Especially did his shade-loving muse hover over and interpret the lower parts of nature; he showed the mysterious bond that allies moral evil to the foul material forms, and has given in epical parables a theory of isanity, of beasts, of unclean and fearful things.

    The American Scholar 2006

  • But they have no epical integrity; are fragmentary; are not shown in their order to the intellect.

    An Address 2006

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