Home › Glossary › Letter E

Epitome

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A verse form that offers a highly condensed summary or quintessential distillation of a larger work, idea, or character.

Detailed Definition
Epitome in poetry denotes a highly condensed representation of a larger idea, character, or era—serving as a quintessential example; it may also refer to a brief summary stanza that crystallizes a poem’s central theme with aphoristic force.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s “All the world’s a stage” epitomizes life’s roles; Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” is an epitome of hope; Epitome condenses complex ideas into vivid images; Modern epitome: “Black lives matter” as poetic slogan.
Additional Notes
Concise summary of larger work. Compression technique. Can be poem summarizing prose or long poem condensed. Related: synopsis, paraphrase. Different from: excerpt (unchanged portion).
Also Known As
verse summary condensed form
Skip to main content