Meaning & use
epic
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Meanings
nouncountableliterary
A long poem or story about the adventures of a hero, often from legend.
Grammar: Often refers to classic works: the Odyssey is an epic.
Patterns
- an epic about someone
Students read an epic about a warrior king.
The Iliad is an epic set during the Trojan War.
She is writing an epic in verse.
nouncountable
A long film or book with a big story and many characters.
Grammar: Often a film epic or historical epic.
Patterns
- a historical epic
The studio spent millions on a three-hour epic.
He directed a sweeping war epic.
The novel is a family epic spanning four generations.
adjectivebefore a noun
Grand in scale and dealing with heroic or dramatic events.
Grammar: Comes before a noun: an epic poem, an epic struggle.
The team's comeback was an epic struggle.
They made an epic journey across the desert.
The film ends with an epic battle.
adjectivecomparableinformal
Extremely impressive or exciting.
Grammar: Informal and often exaggerating: that party was epic.
That concert was epic.
We had an epic day at the beach.
His goal was truly epic.
Word forms
| plural | epics |
|---|
Common combinations
- epic poem
- Beowulf is an epic poem.
- epic journey
- The family took an epic journey across the country.
- epic battle
- The film's epic battle lasts twenty minutes.
- epic proportions
- The traffic jam reached epic proportions.
- epic fail
- Our first attempt was an epic fail.
- national epic
- The Kalevala is Finland's national epic.
Synonyms and how they differ
- saga
- A saga is a long story, often about a family or a long series of events, and may be less heroic than an epic.
- heroic
- Heroic describes bravery, while epic describes grand scale.
- monumental
- Monumental emphasizes great size or importance but not adventure.
- awesome
- Awesome is a casual word for impressive, while epic sounds even more grand or dramatic.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: epic or epoch?
epic vs epoch
An epoch is a long period of time, while an epic is a long heroic story.
Practice
The Odyssey is best described as a(n) ______.
Choose one answer.
The Odyssey is a long poem about a hero's adventures, which is an epic. An epoch is a period of time.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “epic”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.