epigram
Americannoun
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any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed.
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epigrammatic expression.
Oscar Wilde had a genius for epigram.
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a short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought.
noun
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a witty, often paradoxical remark, concisely expressed
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a short, pungent, and often satirical poem, esp one having a witty and ingenious ending
Discover More
Two other words are similar: an epigraph is usually an inscription, as on a statue; an epitaph can be such an inscription or it can be a brief literary note commemorating a dead person.
Several authors are noted for their epigrams, including Mark Twain and Oscar Wilde. One of Wilde's epigrams is “I can resist everything except temptation.”
Other Word Forms
- epigrammatic adjective
- epigrammatically adverb
Etymology
Origin of epigram
1400–50; late Middle English < Latin epigramma < Greek epígramma inscription, epigram. See epi-, -gram 1
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.
Like all the best epigrams, it is deeply wise, even if it overgeneralises.
From The Guardian
“I had a head stuffed full of chivalric epigrams, and the self-confidence that comes from a thorough knowledge of horsemanship and swordplay,” she writes.
From New York Times
Online, his followers — who include Elizabeth Gilbert and Julia Roberts — share not only their love of his drawings and epigrams but also their personal stories about illness, fear, worry and loss.
From Washington Post
Fornés’s surrealistic style, like Beckett’s or Ionesco’s, favors quips and epigrams.
From New York Times
This, more or less, is what Walser’s elderly hero feels now about his conversations with Ulrike, who teases him by twisting his own slightly pompous epigrams against him.
From New York Times
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.
