epeolatry
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Ancient Greek ἔπος (épos, “word”) + -latry (“worship of”). The first citation of the word is from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in his 1860 book The Professor at the Breakfast-Table.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]epeolatry (uncountable)
- (very rare) The worship of words.
- 1860, Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast-table: With The Story of Iris, Ticknor and Fields, page 147:
- Time, time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the thing signified.
- 1906, Patrick Augustine Sheehan, “Emerson: Free-Thought in America”, in Early Essays and Lectures, Longmans, Green, and Company, page 45:
- It is said that the first requisite for a successful politician is to be able to invent nicknames for an adversary; and before now a neatly turned expression has overthrown Governments in France. Epeolatry is the fashion of the day.
- 2006, Roger Day, Anurada Negotiates Our Wobbly Planet, Lulu:
- I read my dictionary for a few more minutes, until tiredness eventually brought my epeolatry to an end for the day.