epitaphy

Noun

epitaphy

1. (obsolete) An epitaph (description on a gravestone)
   • It is desyred that where, of long tyme agoo, in the said chapell, a knight and his wife (were) buried, and their pictures upon theym very sore worne and broken, that they may take away the pictures, and lay in the place a playn stone, with an epitaphy who is there buried, that the people may make...1511, Register, folio 57, vi; quoted in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, second series, volume VII, London: […] Nichols and Sons, for the Society of Antiquaries, […], 20 January...
   • And after in that ſomer, he wrote an epitaphy in latin, and cauſed it to be written vpõ his tombe of ſtone, which himſelf (while he was lord Chãceller) had cauſed to be made in his pariſhe church of Chelſey (where he dwelled) thre smal Miles frõ London. The copye of which epitaphy here foloweth.1557, The VVorkes of Sir Thomas More Knyght, Sometyme Lorde Chauncellour of England, Wrytten by Him in the Englysh Tonge, London: […] Iohn Cawod, Iohn VValy, and Richarde Tottell, page 1419, column 2
2. The art or practice of writing epitaphs.
   • One or two of them are curious specimens of epitaphy.[1879–1883], Our Own Country. Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial., London; Paris; New York, N.Y.: Cassell Petter, Galpin & Co., page 319
   • If one were to execute a line of cleavage that would broadly cut into two sections the work of the six' centuries of statuaries from Henry III. down to our own day, that line might fall within the later days of Elizabeth, and the basis of division would be established according to the manipulation...1893 March, Henry B. Fuller, “Westminster Abbey”, in The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, volume XLV / new series, volume XXIII, number 5, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co.; London: T. Fisher...