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Nov 29, 2009
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ep•ic



Pronunciation: (ep'ik), [key]
—adj. Also,ep'i•cal.
1. noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem.
2. resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country.
3. heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war.
4. of unusually great size or extent: a crime wave of epic proportions.

—n.
1. an epic poem.
2. epic poetry.
3. any composition resembling an epic.
4. something worthy to form the subject of an epic: The defense of the Alamo is an American epic.
5. (cap.) Also called Old Ionic. the Greek dialect represented in the Iliad and the Odyssey, apparently Aeolic modified by Ionic.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.

epibolyepicalyx
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