epochal
Americanadjective
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of, relating to, or of the nature of an epoch.
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extremely important, significant, or influential.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of epochal
Explanation
Epochal describes events so important and significant they have the power to usher in a new epoch. In other words they're "epoch-making." The big bang. The moment when man learned to make fire. The day your braces were removed. These events are epochal in that they mark the dawn of a new era, or epoch, of time. Both epoch and epochal derive from the Latin epocha, which in turn derives from the Greek epekhein, which combines epi "on" with ekhein "to hold," and means to pause or take up a position. Think of epochal events as worthy of an arrow on the timeline of history.
Vocabulary lists containing epochal
This Week in Words: September 8 - 14, 2018
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This Week in Words: December 30, 2017 - January 5, 2018
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The Princess Bride
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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.
Going much further back, oil prices also rocketed during the epochal crisis of World War II in the 1940s.
From MarketWatch ● Feb. 20, 2026
From a trade perspective, 2026 would probably go down in history books as an epochal year for India.
From BBC ● Feb. 17, 2026
In the immediate aftermath of that epochal event, McCartney retreated to a 183-acre sheep farm on the Kintyre Peninsula in Argyllshire, Scotland, with his wife Linda and their young family.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 30, 2025
The scientists of the Manhattan Project, who helped build the bomb and then witnessed Trinity’s fireball, recognized—felt—its epochal shudder.
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2025
The epochal confrontation between the two views of the Cosmos—Earth-centered and Sun-centered—reached a climax in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the person of a man who was, like Ptolemy, both astrologer and astronomer.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
