epitaphy

English

Etymology

(sense 2): From epitaph +‎ -y.

Noun

epitaphy

1. (obsolete) An epitaph (description on a gravestone)
   • 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, […], 1881 January 20, pages 443–444:

     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 setts and pewys, where they may more quietly serve God, and that it may less cowmber the rowme.

   • 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:

     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.

   • 1659, The History of the VVorld: or, An Account of Time. Compiled by the Learned Dionisius Petavius. And Continued by Others, to the Year of Our Lord, 1659. Together with a Geographicall Description of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America., London: […] J. Streater, […], page 226:

     And Paula the nobleſt of all the Women of Rome, (g) which having deſpiſed all her greatneſſe and Riches, that ſhe might wholly give her ſelf up to Chriſt, travelled to Bethlehem about the year 384. as Hieronymus writes in her Epitaphy, who himſelf living in the ſame place filled the whole World with the fame of his great Learning and Piety.

2. The art or practice of writing epitaphs.
   • [1879–1883], Our Own Country. Descriptive, Historical, Pictorial., London, Paris, New York, N.Y.: Cassell Petter, Galpin & Co., page 319:

     One or two of them are curious specimens of epitaphy.

   • 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 Unwin, section IV, page 704, column 2:

     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 of language for purposes of “epitaphy.”

   • 1902 October 25, “Literary Notes”, in Dawson Williams, editor, The British Medical Journal: The Journal of the British Medical Association Including an Epitome of Current Medical Literature, volume II for 1902, London: […] the British Medical Association […], page 1355, column 1:

     The last words are placed within quotation marks so that Dr. Lowder is perhaps not entitled to the glory of one of the nicest “derangements of epitaphy” we have ever met with.

   • 1914 November 20, Reedy’s Mirror, volume XXIII, number 39, St. Louis, Mo.; published in Dun’s Review, Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 1940 April, page 21:

     Imaginative epitaphy is no new thing.

   • 1916, “A Word for the Tombstone”, in Stone: Devoted to the Quarrying and Cutting of Stone for Architectural Uses, volume XXXVII, New York, N.Y.: Stone Publishing Company, […], page 26, columns 1–2:

     Ignored, in many cases, far too long, the chief attention these stalwart reminders of worthy lives have had has been on occasional visit of a curious stranger, often to smile at some odd stroke of epitaphy, some humble verse or some queer touch of sculpture that to the unthinking seems grotesque.

   • 2007, Demetrios V. Grammenos, Elias K. Petropoulos, editors, Ancient Greek Colonies in the Black Sea 2, Archaeopress, →ISBN, page 691, column 1:

     The combination of epitaphy, dedicated to the offspring of a noble Chersonesian family, with a relief image of the weapons on the gravestone (the sword of Sindian-Meotian type and a Scythian bow) testifies that Parphenios was a soldier of the Chersonesian garrison accommodated in the Kulchuk site.