Epilogue

How to spell epilogue

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce epilogue

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does epilogue mean?

1. nounA short closing section of a book, play, or film that comments on or concludes what has gone before.

Epilogue in a sentence

• The novel ends with a brief epilogue set ten years later.

• The author used the epilogue to tie up the loose ends of the plot.

Where does epilogue come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word descends from the Greek epilogos, which combined epi, meaning 'upon' or 'in addition', with logos, meaning 'word' or 'speech'. In ancient rhetoric an epilogos was the closing part of a speech, the summing-up delivered after the main argument. It passed into Latin as epilogus and then into English through French in the fifteenth century, settling into its modern sense of a short closing section that rounds off a play or a book. The same logos root that gives the word its tail also powers a whole family of English words such as 'dialogue', 'monologue' and 'catalogue', and it is precisely that shared, slightly old-fashioned -ogue spelling, rather than a plain -og, that catches people out when they write it.

How the word is built

• epi- (upon, in addition)
• log (from logos: word, speech)
• -ue (silent French-styled ending)

British and American spelling

Epilogue is the British spelling. American English spells it epilog.