epimacus

English

Noun

epimacus (plural epimacuses)

1. (rare) Synonym of opinicus.
   • 1708, A New View of London: or, An Ample Account of That City, in Eight Sections. […], volume II, London: […] John Nicholson […], and Robert Knaplock […], page 613, column 2:

     Supporters 2 Epimacus’s, the Necks purfled and the ſlip of their Bellies Or, Beaked Sable and Wings extending upward gules.

   • 1770 December 28, [Anna, Lady Miller], “Letter XXIX.”, in Letters from Italy, Describing the Manners, Customs, Antiquities, Paintings, &c. of That Country, in the Years mdcclxx and mdcclxxi, to a Friend Residing in France, by an English Woman, volume II, London: […] Edward and Charles Dilly, published 1776, pages 117–118:

     Here are a great collection of antique gems in intaglio; a canopus of agate, an epimacus of chalcedony; a head of Tiberius of one ſingle turquoiſe as large as a hen’s egg, a very great curioſity: […]

   • 1906, John Vinycomb, Fictitious & Symbolic Creatures in Art with Special Reference to Their Use in British Heraldry, Chapman and Hall, Limited, […], page 162:

     The Opinicus, or Epimacus / This creature appears to be a variety of the griffin family.

   • 1910, Ray Lankester, “The Dragon: A Fancy or a Fact”, in Science from an Easy Chair, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd. […], page 125:

     It would be a very interesting but a lengthy task to trace out the origin and history of the various traditional monsters, such as the basilisk, the gorgon, the cockatrice, the salamander, and the epimacus, which have come into European legend and belief, and to give some account of the special deadly qualities of each.

   • 1930, Indian State Railways Magazine, page 15:

     Thus were born from credulity, fancy and fertile imagination, in successive ages, dragons, medusas, basilisks, salamanders, gorgons and unicorns, the cocatrice, the epimacus and the seductive mermaid.

   • 1966, Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, volume 39, page 367:

     On another shield is engraved the Company’s crest—an epimacus, an imaginary beast resembling a griffin.

   • 2009, William Penn, “Garden Speedwells, Rain Lilies”, in Love in the Time of Flowers, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, section 1, page 586:

     […] a shop named Charms and Marvels, the marvelousness if it supposedly a presence of wizards with magical powers to clothe a naked visitor like myself in the wink of an eye and free of charge, but where instantly its marionettes, foliage on bureaus, specimens in apothecaries’ gallipots, taxidermized epimacuses, hippogriffs, manticores, and unbashful bijou putti sprung to life; […]

References

• Thomas Robson (1830) “Epimacus”, in The British Herald, or Cabinet of Armorial Bearings of the Nobility & Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland, from the Earliest to the Present Time; […], volume III, Sunderland: […] [F]or the Author by Turner & Marwood: “See Opinicus.”
• Charles Norton Elvin (1889) “Epimacus”, in A Dictionary of Heraldry with Upwards of Two Thousand Five Hundred Illustrations, London: Kent & C^o […]; East Dereham: W. H. Brown, […], page 55, column 2: “See Opinicus.”
• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Epi·macus”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume III (D–E), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 242, column 3: “An alleged synonym of Oppinicus,^[sic] an imaginary beast resembling a griffin.”