(n.) A short poem treating concisely and pointedly of a single thought or event. The modern epigram is so contrived as to surprise the reader with a witticism or ingenious turn of thought, and is often satirical in character.
(n.) An effusion of wit; a bright thought tersely and sharply expressed, whether in verse or prose.
(n.) The style of the epigram.
Example Sentences:
(1) He has just released a new album, Epigrams and Interludes .
(2) Anna Karenina set out to be a tract against adultery in high society; "Vengeance is mine and I will repay," is the epigram on the novel's title page.
(3) "Bratza takes issue with the apparently resentful epigram coined by the late supreme court justice Lord Rodger: "Argentoratum locutum: iudicium finitum – Strasbourg has spoken, the case is closed".
(4) The play opens with a great comic tour de force as Lord Are attempts to have himself arranged by his servant in the manner of a Gainsborough painting so that he might appear at home in the countryside, all the time spouting epigrams worthy of Oscar Wilde: "A poem should be well cut and fit the page ... the secret of literary style lies in the margins."
(5) I don't know if the closing ceremony will quote those other indelible lines from Shakespeare's great valedictory play, The Tempest , to bookend the opening epigram, but you can't help feeling it should: "Our revels now are ended.
(6) On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story.
(7) But these days, he is full of epigrams about looking on the bright side and some of his phrases feel as worn down as an ocean-tossed pebble, smoothed through years of repetition to reporters, his family, himself: "You get what you get and you don't get upset", "It is what it is."
(8) Stephen Galilee (@SjGalilee) I am supporting #australiansforcoal because anti-coal activists waste a lot of time entertaining themselves with smart arse tweets about it April 14, 2014 But maybe Galilee should remember the often-invoked Oscar Wilde epigram about publicity .
(9) Very often inscriptions--above all grave epigrams--with their great tradition from various times and localities provide many good examples of daily life including valuable references to the practice, ethics and social situation of physicians.
(10) But for a while he spoke only in lapidary epigrams.
(11) It should please those who prefer to have their clichés masquerading as epigrams."
(12) His own vocabulary and the heavily weighted emphasis of his speech is so embedded in public consciousness that it has become a comic style as recognisable as an epigram from Oscar Wilde or a line from one of his other literary heroes, PG Wodehouse.
Epitaph
Definition:
(n.) An inscription on, or at, a tomb, or a grave, in memory or commendation of the one buried there; a sepulchral inscription.
(n.) A brief writing formed as if to be inscribed on a monument, as that concerning Alexander: "Sufficit huic tumulus, cui non sufficeret orbis."
(v. t.) To commemorate by an epitaph.
(v. i.) To write or speak after the manner of an epitaph.
Example Sentences:
(1) It is hard to think of a better provisional epitaph than that supplied in the midst of his later troubles by Martin Palouš, one of the first signatories of Charter 77: "Havel was the man who was able to stage this miracle play.
(2) Perhaps the most flattering epitaph for Ronnie Biggs, who has died aged 84, was written for him many years ago by the unlikely figure of the former commissioner of the Metropolitan police Sir Robert Mark .
(3) And a telling line said by one character about Gustave's desire to recreate a bygone era could almost be Anderson's own epitaph: "His world had vanished long before he entered it.
(4) And then he came up with a flat rejection of any attempt to make sense of a 55-year long recording career that had transformed rock, and a line that could stand as his epitaph: "I am what I am, it is what it is.
(5) Uncritically decoding Benefits Street epitomises these dubious qualities, and perhaps this warning could stand as Hall's epitaph.
(6) The poem is structured like a lament, the soldiers' epitaphs interspersed with direct translations of Homer's extended similes, each of which is transcribed, lullingly, twice over.
(7) A few weeks ago our conversation came around to the question of epitaphs.
(8) And his epitaph: “I wouldn’t roll over and I didn’t go quietly.” • Still, Farage’s star continues its rise, as does that of former Guardianista Natalie Bennett .
(9) There are good reasons to be sceptical of the epitaphic impulse to declare “the end of nature”.
(10) Example and epitaph: "It is harder for many people to believe that God loves them than to believe that he exists."
(11) The inscription on Paracelsus' epitaph in the cemetery of Saint Sebastian in Salzburg is critically reviewed with regard to an allusion to Job, Chapter 19.
(12) • Journey into Fear, Uncommon Danger, Cause for Alarm, The Mask of Dimitrios and Epitaph for a Spy are all published by Penguin Modern Classics at £8.99 each.
(13) Do these people know what they're doing – they are inscribing Chinua's epitaph in the negative mode of thwarted expectations.
(14) The Scottish National party has already described the oil grab as Alexander's political epitaph, but what will worry him more is the lack of support from key cabinet allies and normally loyal Scottish Liberal Democrat MPs, such as Malcolm Bruce.
(15) I knew I had to rethink everything.” Joining the Royal Court in 1957, he made his London directing debut with NF Simpson ’s A Resounding Tinkle, and scored an early success with John Osborne ’s Epitaph for George Dillon, which transferred to Broadway.
(16) I don’t want my political epitaph to read that I just balanced the books and cleared up the mess I inherited.
(17) Worse still, it concluded, if Europe failed to surmount its economic crisis the prize would be a “risible memory, or worse, an epitaph for what Europe could have been, should have been.” 11.33am BST Aid donations My colleague Mark Tran, the Guardian's Global Development correspondent, has sent this as a counterpoint to the detractors: Something positive to say about the EU.
(18) One day, if they write an epitaph for me, I hope it will not say I was a triple-amputee, instead just say that Giles Duley was a photographer.
(19) From behind the keys of his supercharged typewriter, Ambler produced an astonishing four more novels in the next three years: Epitaph for a Spy, Cause for Alarm, The Mask of Dimitrios and Journey into Fear.
(20) "Then I went out on Sunday and got the Observer and there was their epitaph … I went to a friend's house and rang a friend and we were both crying on the phone saying 'what a dreadful, dreadful waste, what a dreadful thing'."