epic

nounB22 meaningsVery rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — epicure sits at #14,708Too rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

An epic is a long poem about heroes and the great things they did — wars, voyages, the founding of a city. The Iliad is an epic, and so is the story of Gilgamesh, told aloud for centuries before anybody wrote it down.

The word stretched to cover anything built on that scale: a three-hour film with a cast of thousands is an epic, and so is a novel that follows one family across a hundred years. As an adjective it means very large and ambitious — an epic journey, an epic battle. In casual speech it has worn down to simply very good or very bad: the party was epic, an epic fail. Keep that last use for friends; in an essay it sounds fifteen years old.

Definitions of epic

1nounepicA long poem or story about the deeds of heroes.B2
“Homer's epic follows Odysseus on his long voyage home from the war.”
2adjectivegrandVery great, long or ambitious, like the events in such a story.B2
“It was an epic journey across three continents by bus and boat.”

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epic

Definitions of epic

1nounepicA long poem or story about the deeds of heroes.B2
“Homer's epic follows Odysseus on his long voyage home from the war.”
2adjectivegrandVery great, long or ambitious, like the events in such a story.B2
“It was an epic journey across three continents by bus and boat.”