epoch

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin epocha,^[2][3][4][5] which the OED calls Late Latin, Etymonline and Barnhart Medieval Latin, and the Shorter Oxford and the ODE modern Latin;^{[6][4][5][2][3]} Partridge thinks it perhaps came directly through French.^[7] English first used the Latin form itself, from 1614, shortened to the present form by 1658.^[5][2][3] The Latin is from Ancient Greek ἐποχή (epokhḗ, “stoppage, pause, fixed point of time”),^[6][4][8][9] from ἐπέχω (epékhō, “to hold back, stop, take up a position”),^[6][8][9] formed from ἐπί (epí, “on, upon”) and ἔχω (ékhō, “to hold, have”),^[4][6][10] from Proto-Indo-European *segh- (“to hold”).^[4][11] In Greek the noun also meant the position of a planet or star.^[6][9] The Greek verb is also the source of hectic, and is related to scheme and sketch.^[10] The OED compares French époque and Italian epoca.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The starting point of a system of dating, such as the birth of Christ, the Hijra or the founding of Rome: 1614, in Selden's Titles of Honor.^[6][12][4] Merriam-Webster now labels this sense obsolete, and the Shorter Oxford calls it rare.^[12][2]

Semantic evolution

Ayto explains that the word first meant a point in time, and that its use for the point at which a new period begins led more and more to its modern use for the period itself.^[10] The sense of a period of time is recorded from 1629 in the OED;^[6] Etymonline dates it to the 1620s.^[4] From 1660, in Dryden, it could mean the date of a historical event.^[6] From 1673 it also meant the beginning of a new era, as in to make an epoch.^[6] Astronomers used it from 1715 for a fixed date to which the positions of celestial bodies are referred.^[6][2] From 1761 it was also used, after époque, for the exact time of an event.^[6] The geological sense, a division of the history of the earth's crust, dates from 1802, in Playfair,^[6][4] and a sense in physics from 1879.^[6] Weekley notes that epoch-making replaced an earlier epoch-forming, apparently adapted from German by Coleridge.^[13]

Timeline

• 1614 – the starting point of a system of dating.^[6][12]
• 1629 – a period of time.^[6] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1620s.^[4]
• 1660 – the date of a historical event.^[6]
• 1673 – the beginning of a new era, as in to make an epoch.^[6]
• 1715 – in astronomy, a fixed reference date.^[6]
• 1768 – a period in a person's life.^[6]
• 1802 – in geology, a division of the history of the earth.^[6][4]
• 1879 – in physics.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long period of history marked by particular events or features; an era: the epoch of steam power.^[14][12][6]
2. A point in time that begins a new or distinctive period: The first moon landing marked an epoch in exploration.^[14][6][2]
3. (geology) A unit of geological time, a division of a period: the Holocene epoch.^[14][6]
4. (astronomy) A fixed date to which data such as the coordinates or orbit of a celestial body are referred.^{[14][12][6][2]}
5. (physics) The displacement of an oscillation at a reference time.^[14][6]
6. (now rare) The starting point of a system of chronology.^[2][12][6]

Word family

• epoch-making

Related words

• epochal
• hectic
• scheme
• sketch

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins