Words & WritingGreek → English
Epigram
/ˈɛpɪɡræm/noun
A short, pointed saying, often turning on a twist in the last few words.
The Greek roots
ἐπί
epí
upon, on
γράμμα
grámma
something written
Literally: “writing upon”
The story of the word
An ἐπίγραμμα was literally what was written on something: letters cut into stone or bronze. Stone is expensive and hands tire, so inscriptions stayed short, and the word slid from the medium to the brevity and then to the wit. By the time English took it in the fifteenth century the stone had dropped away entirely. The most famous of all is still two lines: Simonides on the Spartan dead at Thermopylae.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
epigraphepitaphgrammardiagram
In a sentence
Wilde could not resist an epigram, even in a letter about the plumbing.