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▪ I. epigram|ˈɛpɪgræm|
Also 6–7 epigramme, (6 epigrame, 7 epigramm).
[ad. F. épigramme, ad. L. epigramma, Gr. ἐπίγραµµα, f. ἐπιγράϕειν, f. ἐπί upon + γράϕειν to write.]
†1. An inscription, usually in verse: = epigraph 1.
1552Huloet, Epigrame or superscription. 1567Drant Horace' Epist. i. vii. D iij, Led by pompe wyth Sergeaunts sad the Epigrammes to graue. 1606Holland Sueton. Introd. 4 The Epigramme of the former is extant among the Antiquities of Rome citie. 1699Bentley Phal. xviii. 528 The Epigram, that was written upon the public Sepulchre at Athens. 1782V. Knox Ess. I. 264 Inscriptions, for such are epigrams according to the original meaning. a1876M. Collins in Pen Sketches I. 246 What the Greeks meant by an epigram was simply an inscription, and its primary use was funereal.
2. A short poem ending in a witty or ingenious turn of thought, to which the rest of the composition is intended to lead up.
1538Leland Itin. VI. 59 If it be so I must amend my Epigramme of it. 1607Topsell Serpents (1653) 756 Some learned Writers..have compared a Scorpion to an Epigram..because as the sting of the Scorpion lyeth in the tayl, so the force and vertue of an Epigram is in the conclusion. 1876Green Short Hist. ix. §3. 617 Even Rochester in his merciless epigram was forced to own that Charles ‘never said a foolish thing’.
b. loosely used for a laudatory poem.
1872Ellacombe Bells of Ch. ix. 493 This epigrame [of date 1558], as it is called, consists of sixty-four lines in English verse in praise of the said Robert Palmer and his sons, and other friends, skilled in ringing changes.
3. A pointed or antithetical saying.
1796Burke Regic. Peace iv. Wks. IX. 51 A short, affected, pedantick, insolent, theatrick laconism: a sort of epigram of contempt. 1884Church Bacon iii. 60 He liked..to generalise in shrewd and sometimes cynical epigrams.
b. Epigrammatic expression.
18..Ld. Brougham Dk. Bedford Wks. 1872 I. 393 The morbid taste for slander steeped in epigram. 1877E. Conder Bas. Faith i. 35 Epigram is one thing, definition is another.
▪ II. † ˈepigram, v. Obs. rare—1.
[f. prec. n.]
intr. To write an epigram.
1627–77Feltham Resolves i. lxxi. 110 For this, does Martial Epigram upon it. |