epitaph
Americannoun
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a commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument about the person buried at that site.
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a brief poem or other writing in praise of a deceased person.
verb (used with object)
noun
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a commemorative inscription on a tombstone or monument
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a speech or written passage composed in commemoration of a dead person
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a final judgment on a person or thing
Other Word Forms
- epitaphic adjective
- epitaphist noun
- epitaphless adjective
- unepitaphed adjective
Etymology
Origin of epitaph
1350–1400; Middle English epitaphe < Latin epitaphium < Greek epitáphion over or at a tomb, equivalent to epi- epi- + táph ( os ) tomb + -ion noun, adj. suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
When the cartographer James Cheshire stumbled into the room in University College London several years ago, he encountered less a resource for mapping the modern globe than “an epitaph of a world we once knew.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 31, 2025
If we were to assign his TV father an epitaph, he could do a lot worse than the unvarnished speech that closes the first season.
From Salon • Jul. 24, 2025
Despite all this Mr Varvill's own epitaph for the business overshadows technological milestones.
From BBC • Jun. 2, 2025
If this ends up being Cronenberg’s last, he’ll have gone out with a worldly, weighty epitaph.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 18, 2025
With a smile he copied out the warrior epitaph at Thermopylae: “Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by/that here obedient to their laws we lie.”
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
