Word.ws English Dictionary

epigonism

epigonism noun: an artistic or literary imitation of an artist by a later generation; stereotyped repetition.

Noun

epigonism (usually uncountable, plural epigonisms)

  1. (usually) An artistic or literary imitation of an artist by a later generation; stereotyped repetition.
    • Such a form of epigonism seems explicable only in that the authors, having no poetic sensibilities of their own, appropriate a poetry with which, presumably, they grew up. An even less excusable form of epigonism is the fairly frequent […]1948, William Van O'Connor, Sense and Sensibility in Modern Poetry
  2. (usually) The product of an epigone.

Forms of epigonism

pluralepigonisms

Origin of epigonism

From epigone + -ism.

Questions about epigonism

What does epigonism mean?
Epigonism means an artistic or literary imitation of an artist by a later generation; stereotyped repetition.
What part of speech is epigonism?
Epigonism is a noun.
What is the plural of epigonism?
The plural of epigonism is epigonisms.

Words near epigonism in the dictionary

  1. epigoni
  2. epigonic
  3. epigonid
  4. epigonids
  5. epigonion
  6. epigonism
  7. epigonisms
  8. Epigonoi
  9. epigonous
  10. epigons
  11. epigonus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: epigonism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “epigonism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/epigonism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.