epic
noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.
resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country.
an epic poem.
epic poetry.
any composition resembling an epic.
something worthy to form the subject of an epic: The defense of the Alamo is an American epic.
Epic. Also called Old Ionic . the Greek dialect represented in the Iliad and the Odyssey, apparently Aeolic modified by Ionic.
Origin of epic
1Other words from epic
- ep·i·cal·ly, adverb
- ep·ic·like, adjective
- non·ep·ic, adjective, noun
- non·ep·i·cal, adjective
- sem·i·ep·ic, adjective, noun
- sem·i·ep·i·cal, adjective
- su·per·ep·ic, adjective, noun
- un·ep·ic, adjective
Words that may be confused with epic
- epic , epoch
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use epic in a sentence
This is a Hollywood director at the height of his powers creating original, wildly ambitious epics.
Oscars 2015: The Daily Beast’s Picks, From Scarlett Johansson to ‘Boyhood’ | Marlow Stern | January 6, 2015 | THE DAILY BEASTHis father had read him stories, like King Arthur, epics of kingdoms won and lost.
The Price of Being a Patton: Wrestling With the Legacy of America’s Most Famous General | Tim Teeman | May 26, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTBooks, video games, made-for-TV movies, and Hollywood epics: this military operation is the gift that keeps on giving.
From ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ to ‘Medal of Honor’ Video Game: The SEAL Team Six Gift Guide | Benjamin Schor | December 19, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTIt is also one of the few epics of Modernity—a movement birthed in the city—to concern the outer reaches, the wilds.
What is the Aeneid if not a re-imagining of the Homeric epics?
An epic poem in sixteen cantos, Coln , is no more successful than modern epics usually are.
They performed mighty epics of work down there in the darkness amid the rumbling, falling roof.
The Underworld | James C. WelshWe must first ask to what manner of audiences did the poets sing, in the alleged four centuries of the evolution of the Epics.
Homer and His Age | Andrew LangThe whole situation, we shall show, recurs again and again in the epics of feudal France, the later epics of feudal discontent.
Homer and His Age | Andrew LangIn the mediaeval epics, as in Homer, there is no idea of recourse to a duel between the Over-Lord and his peer.
Homer and His Age | Andrew Lang
British Dictionary definitions for epic
/ (ˈɛpɪk) /
a long narrative poem recounting in elevated style the deeds of a legendary hero, esp one originating in oral folk tradition
the genre of epic poetry
any work of literature, film, etc, having heroic deeds for its subject matter or having other qualities associated with the epic: a Hollywood epic
an episode in the lives of men in which heroic deeds are performed or attempted: the epic of Scott's expedition to the South Pole
denoting, relating to, or characteristic of an epic or epics
of heroic or impressive proportions: an epic voyage
Origin of epic
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for epic
A long narrative poem written in elevated style, in which heroes of great historical or legendary importance perform valorous deeds. The setting is vast in scope, covering great nations, the world, or the universe, and the action is important to the history of a nation or people. The Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid are some great epics from world literature, and two great epics in English are Beowulf and Paradise Lost.
Notes for epic
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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