Epic

How to spell epic

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce epic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does epic mean?

1. adjectiveOf impressively large scale, grandeur, or heroic ambition.
2. nounA long narrative work, especially a poem or film, recounting heroic deeds on a grand scale.

Epic in a sentence

• adjective

  The move across the country turned into an epic logistical challenge.

• noun

  The professor lectured on the ancient Greek epic for an hour.

• adjective

  Their road trip became an epic journey lasting three weeks.

• noun

  The director spent four years filming his historical epic.

Where does epic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek epikos, an adjective built on epos, which literally meant a word, a speech, or a song. In ancient Greece an epos came to mean specifically a long narrative poem recited aloud, the grand stories of heroes such as those Homer composed. The adjective epikos therefore described anything belonging to that lofty, heroic style of verse. English picked the term up in the late 1500s, at first strictly to describe poetry of that elevated kind, and the noun followed soon after for the poems themselves. Over time the adjective broadened far beyond literature, so today we call any vast, ambitious, or impressively large undertaking epic. The spelling stays comfortingly close to the Greek root, with no silent letters to catch the writer out.

How the word is built

• ep- (from Greek epos: word, speech, song)
• -ic (adjective/noun suffix)