epilogue

American  

[ep-uh-lawg, -log] / ˈɛp əˌlɔg, -ˌlɒg /

Rarely epilog

noun

epilogues plural

1. a usually short section appended to the conclusion of a book or film.

   The novel ends rather grimly, but the epilogue reveals that most of the characters go on to find fulfillment.

2. a later event that illuminates or reinforces the significance of an earlier set of events.

   The sad life of Tasso, the last great poet of the Italian Renaissance, was a fitting epilogue to the age, whose genius also declined into decadence.

3. a speech, usually in verse, delivered by one of the actors after the conclusion of a play.

4. the actor who delivers a play’s epilogue.

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epilogue British  

/ ɪˈpɪlədʒɪst, ˈɛpɪˌlɒɡ /

noun

1. 1. a speech, usually in verse, addressed to the audience by an actor at the end of a play

   2. the actor speaking this

2. a short postscript to any literary work, such as a brief description of the fates of the characters in a novel

3. (esp formerly) the concluding programme of the day on a radio or television station, often having a religious content

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• epilogist
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• epilogues
  plural

Etymology

Origin of epilogue

First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English epiloge, from Latin epilogus, from Greek epílogos “conclusion of a speech,” equivalent to epi- epi- + lógos “word”

Explanation

If you like to read the end of a book first, then maybe the epilogue is for you. The epilogue is a short piece that wraps up the end of a story. The noun epilogue can also refer to the short speech at the end of a play that one of the characters speaks directly to the audience. In Shakespeare's play The Tempest, the epilogue is a 20-line monologue spoken by Prospero. Epilogue comes from the Greek word epilogus meaning the conclusion of a speech.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

epilogue epilogues

In his prescient epilogue, Mr. Overhoff contends that the divide between Washington and Frederick is no “relic of transatlantic history” but an instructive guide to the present and future.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 27, 2026

For his staging of the music from Prokofiev’s epilogue, Mr. Millepied makes much of the fluorescent light tubes that are part of Mr. Couture’s design.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 9, 2026

And you can expect more such details to surface as we finally get the Succession epilogue its fans have pined for, with a Tom Wambsgans type in charge.

From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2026

But later, in a lengthy epilogue scene, Mike Wheeler takes us down another possibility - Eleven using Kali's illusion powers to make it seem as though she died before making a grand escape.

From BBC ● Jan. 1, 2026

A brilliant example of this occurs as the epilogue of Heinrich Biber’s devotional cycle of sixteen solo violin sonatas known as the ‘Rosary’ or ‘Mystery’ sonatas, composed in 1676.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall

There are eight books in the series, plus a book of epilogues with a short story called “The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After.”

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 6, 2022

Save for a protracted, comic series of text-on-screen epilogues, Egerton’s John—prompted by years of abuse, granted—is mostly depicted as having been, offstage, a childish, mean, graceless jerk.

From Slate ● May 31, 2019

From there, the show quickly downshifted into a mix of baffling and fan-servicing epilogues.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2019

Some of the dead, such as Orion, “that huge hunter,” who keeps up his chase on the shadow world’s fields, undergo fates that seem like dim epilogues of their lives.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 14, 2019

Not always, however, are prologues, or epilogues short.

From Dramatic Technique by Baker, George Pierce

Related Words

• afterword
• coda
• postscript
• summation