This week’s theme
Poetic forms

This week’s words
clerihew
epigram
cento
limerick
doggerel

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(EP-i-gram)

MEANING:

noun: A short witty saying, often in verse.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin epigramma, from Greek epigramma, from epigraphein (to write, inscribe), from epi- (upon, after) + graphein (to write). Other words originating from the same root are graphite, paragraph, program, and topography. Earliest documented use: 1552.

NOTES:

According to the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
Here is one from Benjamin Franklin that truly demonstrates the power of a pithy epigram:

USAGE:

“I had never read Martial until I picked up his Selected Epigrams in a new edition with delightfully snarky translations by Susan McLean ... it’s hard to demonstrate the quality of Martial’s wit, since most of his best epigrams are unprintable here.”
Bruce Handy; Humor; The New York Times Book Review; Dec 7, 2014.

A few selected epigrams from the delectable Selected Epigrams:
See more usage examples of epigram in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: