Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "epigram" []

  • A short, witty poem expressing a single thought or observation. (noun)
  • A concise, clever, often paradoxical statement. See Synonyms at saying. (noun)
  • Epigrammatic discourse or expression. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "epigram" in a sentence
  • "To see the name of John Milton, the great religious and political polemicist, attached to such a bawdy epigram, is extremely surprising to say the least."
  • "The rhetorical flourish of a Latin epigram also has served to indicate that the notion of proof is well understood, and commonly agreed."
  • "With its converse insight into the modality of romantic apostasy, this volatile epigram is nothing less than the fulcrum with which we can gain sufficient purchase to negotiate the critical conversions of Coleridgean recantation, from the odes of the 1790s through the desultory journalism of the 1800s and 1810s to the "Logosophia" of 1817 and after."