An epithet (from Ancient Greek: ἐπίθετον epitheton, neut. of ἐπίθετος epithetos, "attributed, added") or byname is a descriptive term (word or phrase) accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title. For example, Alexander the Great.
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Famous quotes containing the word epithet:
“I think I have done well, if I have acquired a new word from a good author; and my business with him is to find my own, though it were only to melt him down into an epithet or an image for daily use.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The truth is, that common-sense, or thought as it first emerges above the level of the narrowly practical, is deeply imbued with that bad logical quality to which the epithet metaphysical is commonly applied; and nothing can clear it up but a severe course of logic.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)