Word of the Day

: May 5, 2015

epigram

noun EP-ih-gram

What It Means

1 : a concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event and often ending with an ingenious turn of thought

2 : a terse, sage, or witty and often paradoxical saying

3 : expression marked by the use of epigrams

epigram in Context

On the wall of his studio, Jonathan kept a framed print of his favorite epigram from Benjamin Franklin: "Little strokes fell great oaks."

"But this is a work that tends to rely on pithy epigrams, rather than build a sturdy narrative arc about a young artist's awakening and an old artist's raging against the dying of the light." - Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune, February 13, 2015

Did You Know?

Ancient Greeks and Romans used the word epigramma (from Greek epigraphein, meaning "to write on") to refer to a concise, witty, and often satirical verse. The Roman poet Martial (who published eleven books of these epigrammata, or epigrams, between the years 86 and 98 C.E.) was a master of the form: "You puff the poets of other days, / the living you deplore. / Spare me the accolade: your praise / Is not worth dying for." English speakers adopted the "verse" sense of the word when we first used epigram for a concise poem dealing pointedly and often satirically with a single thought or event in the 15th century. In the late 18th century, we began using epigram for concise, witty sayings, even if they didn't rhyme.