How to Use epigraph in a Sentence

epigraph

noun
  • Come for the Sylvia Plath epigraph, stay for, well, the whole thing.
    Leor Galil, Chicago Reader, 13 Feb. 2018
  • Each of the book’s 52 chapters bears an epigraph taken from the Bible.
    Barton Swaim, WSJ, 14 Nov. 2022
  • These are signalled by the novel’s epigraph, which comes from the Book of Job.
    Giles Harvey, The New Yorker, 20 Mar. 2023
  • That was always going to be the epigraph, but not the title.
    Tre'vell Anderson, latimes.com, 19 June 2017
  • That could be the epigraph for your new book, Tom Scheerer Decorates.
    Douglas Brenner, House Beautiful, 4 Aug. 2013
  • The essay wears an epigraph from Virgil: Deus nobis haec otia fecit.
    Maggie Nelson, The New Yorker, 6 Apr. 2020
  • That includes Oliver, whose words here could serve as an epigraph for this marvelous play.
    Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 19 June 2018
  • This declaration might be read as an epigraph for all three books.
    David L. Ulin, Harper's Magazine, 24 Nov. 2020
  • The book's epigraphs come from directors Peter Brook and Constantin Stanislavski.
    Kathleen Rooney, chicagotribune.com, 26 June 2017
  • From his student days onward, Sebald was a deep reader of Adorno, and the passage might be an epigraph for all Sebald’s writing.
    James Wood, The New Yorker, 31 May 2017
  • That’s the epigraph to Penelope Fitzgerald’s astounding short novel, written toward the end of her life about the beginning of his.
    Hermione Lee, WSJ, 15 Jan. 2021
  • Rilke’s evocation of an animal scared of itself could easily have been the epigraph to Blumstein’s book.
    Rebecca Giggs, The Atlantic, 5 Oct. 2020
  • The epigraph in Everything and More is a streak of Greek letters, like a squished mathematical formula.
    George Johnson, Discover Magazine, 1 May 2013
  • Egan also gestures to this paradox by choosing as her epigraph a quote from Herman Melville, who spent most of his life not on the island of Nantucket but on the island of Manhattan.
    Amor Towles, New York Times, 3 Oct. 2017
  • Maybe the instructor has included a stirring epigraph or a striking image to distinguish theirs from all the others.
    Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, 22 Oct. 2020
  • The quotation appears on Pinterest and Tumblr, in articles and epigraphs.
    Sarah Fay, Longreads, 17 Mar. 2020
  • Both versions served as inspiration for Hillary Clinton, who included the original quote as the epigraph to her new memoir, What Happened.
    Jessica Estepa, USA TODAY, 14 Sep. 2017
  • Irulan is mentioned on the very first page of the novel Dune (her historical writings from decades in the future of the book's events provide an epigraph for almost every chapter), but was absent from last year's film.
    Christian Holub, EW.com, 8 Mar. 2022
  • Scraps of dialogue overlap to reveal both banalities and fleeting epiphanies: So the dedication became an epigraph.
    Clare Cavanagh, Washington Post, 23 Feb. 2023
  • Still’s Afro-American Symphony features spoken epigraphs of Dunbar poems before each movement.
    Minnita Daniel-Cox, Smithsonian Magazine, 6 Mar. 2023
  • An opening epigraph from Nietzsche about loneliness and demons suggests a deeper character study that never materializes.
    Noel Murray, latimes.com, 28 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'epigraph.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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