the.com/epic
A word once reserved for gods and wars, now applied to nachos.
means Describing something on a grand, heroic, or impressively large scale — or the long narrative poem of such deeds.
from From Greek 'epikos,' from 'epos' meaning 'word, song, or story' — the spoken poetry of bards reciting the deeds of heroes. It passed through Latin 'epicus' into English, where for centuries it stayed solemnly attached to Homer and Virgil before slipping its leash into casual speech.
- origin
- From Greek epos, meaning word or song
- true epics
- Gilgamesh predates Homer by a millennium
- length
- The Mahabharata dwarfs the Bible tenfold
- oral roots
- Memorized and sung before writing existed
- downgrade
- Slang inflation shrank it to mild approval
iliad — homer's ancient greek poem of ~24,000 lines about the trojan war, composed around 8th century bce
odyssey — homer's epic following odysseus's 10-year journey home from troy, ~12,000 lines
divine comedy — dante alighieri's 14,233-line italian poem through hell, purgatory, and paradise, written 1308-1320
beowulf — old english epic of ~3,200 lines about a warrior fighting grendel, composed 6th-11th century