epitaph 
epi·taph (ep′ə taf′, -täf′)
noun
- an inscription on a tomb or gravestone in memory of the person buried there
- a short composition in prose or verse, written as a tribute to a dead person, past event, etc.
Etymology: ME & OFr epitaphe < L epitaphium, eulogy < Gr epitaphion < epi, upon, at + taphos, tomb < thaptein, to bury
epitaph
n.
Converse of object
- write: Write your own poem or write an epitaph for someone who died in battle.
- follow: In what churchyard does the following curious epitaph appear on a tombstone?
- have: This has an interesting epitaph: A faithful holy pastor here lies hid, One of a thousand, Mr Peter Kid.
- inscribe: October 25, 1400, was the date of Chaucer's own death, according to the epitaph inscribed on his sixteenth-century tomb.
- compose: Before she died, Eyre had composed the cruelly ironic epitaph, which finally stung her to desperation and death.
- bear: There are many, whom I have had the privilege of meeting, whose tombstone might well bear the grim epitaph: ' .
Preposition: on
- headstone: A separate cemetery was created for Protestant interments and this survives with many of the epitaphs on the headstones still visible.
- stone: The epitaph on the stone is in the form of an acrostic.
Adjective modifier
- fitting: Thus from their loss has grown a fitting epitaph.
- Latin: He died in 1743, at the age of eighty-three, and a Latin epitaph written by himself is inscribed on his monument.
- famous: It was around 1808 that Lord Byron wrote his famous epitaph in honor of his Newfoundland, Boatswain.
- own: Coleridge wrote his own epitaph in the last year of his life.
- simple: Her life's work is encapsulated in her simple epitaph: ' The Sailors ' Friend ' .
- appropriate: This statement might serve as a remarkably appropriate epitaph to the author's celebrated technical accomplishments.
Modifies a noun
Noun used with modifier
- verse: According to the STC, Phillips wrote a fair number of verse epitaphs.
- gravestone: Rather than writing their gravestone epitaphs, the major players are readying themselves for the end of the second digital decade.
- marble: One after another, those who had played in those places were buried there, with huge marble epitaphs detailing their sacrifice.
Preposition: in
- churchyard: There are many quaint epitaphs in the churchyard, which was closed for burials in 1888, and a new cemetery opened.
It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an oak in the chimney are no epitaph of that oak, to tell me how high or how large that was; it tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it felland when a whirlwind hathblownthedustofthechurchyard intothe church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the church into the churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce,This is the Patrician, this the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran.
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: 'A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.'
The epitaph on the Kennedyadministration became Camelotöa magic moment in American history, when gallant men danced with beautiful women, when great deeds were done, when artists, writers and poets met at the White House and the barbarians beyond the walls were held back.
And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.
I have but one request to make at my departure from this world, it isöthe charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives, dare now vindicate them, let no prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justicetomycharacter.Whenmycountry takesher place among thenations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written.
Here lies one who meant well, tried a little, failed much:ösurely that may be his epitaph, of which he need not be ashamed. 823
Browse dictionary entries near epitaph
- ‹ epistyle
- ‹ epistolary
- ‹ epistler
- ‹ epistle
- ‹ episternum
- ‹ epistemology
- ‹ epistemic
- ‹ epistaxis
- ‹ epistasis
- ‹ episome
- epitasis ›
- epitaxy ›
- epithalamium ›
- epithelial ›
- epithelioid ›
- epithelioma ›
- epithelium ›
- epithelize ›
- epithet ›
- epitome ›
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