An epitaph is a short piece of writing about someone who is dead, often carved on their grave. a short piece of writing on the stone over someone's grave (=place in the ground where someone is buried) (épitaphe, from epitaphion, from epi- ( EPICENTER) + taphos ). Inscription in verse or prose on a tomb, or, by extension, anything written as if to be inscribed on a tomb. Probably the earliest surviving epitaphs are those written on ancient Egyptian sarcophagi and coffins. Ancient Greek examples are often of literary interest. In Elizabethan times epitaphs began to assume a more literary character. Many of the best known are literary memorials (often deliberately witty) not intended for a tomb
A brief writing formed as if to be inscribed on a monument, as that concerning Alexander: "Sufficit huic tumulus, cui non sufficeret orbis
a burial inscription, often in verse Philip Reder's Epitaphs (London: Michael Joseph, 1969) collected authentic examples, largely from British gravestones Here are two: Here lies Robert Wallis, Clerk of All Hallows, King of good fellows, And maker of bellows He bellows did make till the day of his death, But he that made bellows could never make breath (p 53; Newcastel-upon-Tyne) I poorly lived, and poorly died, And when I was buried, nobody cried (p 89; Lillington) Dorothy Parker's "Epitaph for a Darling Lady" makes light of the form
An inscription on, or at, a tomb, or a grave, in memory or commendation of the one buried there; a sepulchral inscription
A brief poem or statement in memory of someone who is deceased, used as -- or suitable for -- a tombstone inscription; a commemorative lamentation (See also Dirge, Elegy, Monody)