EPI 



309 



EQU 



from ttrt, and 



i, to appear. A church festival, cele- 

 brated on the twelfth day after Christmas, 

 in commemoration of the Saviour's being 

 manifested to 1 the wise men of the East, 

 by the appearance of a miraculous star. 



EP'IPHHAGM, from un, upon, and q^u.'y- 

 (jua., a partition. The slender membrane 

 which sometimes shuts the peristome of 

 mosses. 



EPIPHYI/LOSPER'MOCS, from tT/,0vAAov, 

 * leaf, and er-ri^fMt, , seed. An epithet ap- 

 plied to plants which bear their seed on 

 the back of the leaves. These plants are 

 cryptogamic, and form a natural family, 

 under the name of epiphylospermee. 



EPIPHT'LLOCS, <r; and tfuKXov, a leaf. 

 In botany, something inserted upon a leaf. 

 EPIPH'TSIS, tiri<fvtns, from uri, upon, 

 and QU&I, to grow; a portion of bone 

 growing upon another bone, but not 

 forming a part of it, as is the case of apo- 

 physis. 



EPIPLEX'IS, from ST< and trXtxu, to fold ; 

 a figure of rhetoric in which the speaker 

 endeavours to convince by a gentle kind 

 of upbraiding. 



EP'IPLOCE, ixvrXoxYi, implication ; a fi- 

 gure of rhetoric by which one aggrava- 

 tion is added by due gradation to another. 

 EPIPLOCE'LE, from tir/s-Aosv, the omen- 

 turn, and zvih'/i, a tumour; an omental 

 hernia ; a rupture produced by the pro- 

 trusion of a portion of the omentum. 



EPIP'LOIC, appertaining to the epiploon 

 or omentum, as the epiploic arteries, which 

 are branches of the gastro-epiploic artery 

 distributed to the omentum. 



EPIP'LOON, MixXoot, from i-r/3-A.uu, to 

 sail over ; the omentum, which sails as it 

 were upon the intestines. 



EPISCE'NIUM, nTurzwiov, a place on the 

 top of an ancient theatre where the ma- 

 chinery was kept. 



KPISCOPA'LIANS, an appellation given 

 to those who adhere to the episcopal form 

 of church government. 



EP'ISODE, iifta-aib?!, an incident, story, 

 or action, introduced into a poem, and 

 connected with, but separable from, the 

 main action. The episode was originally 

 something rehearsed between the parts 

 of a chorus in ancient tragedy, to amuse 

 the audience. 



E'PISPERM, sir< and em^uet, seed. In 

 botany, the integuments of a seed. 



EPISTATES, i^tyratTY.g, the title of the 

 presidents of the two great Athenian 

 councils, the Ecclesia and the Senate of 

 the five hundred-. 



EPIS'TROI-HE, i~-to-T%o<ri, from iri and 

 rr{i0w. to turn; a figure in rhetoric 

 wherein wreral successive sentences end 



with the same affirmation : thus, " Are 

 they Hebrews ? So am I. Are they Is- 

 raelites : So am I. Are they of the seed 

 of Abraham ? So am I," &c. 



EP'ISTTLE, from fri and <rrv^6s,a.co 

 lumn ; a term used by the ancient Greek 

 architects for what is now called the ar- 

 chitrave (q. v.). 



EPIT'ASIS, from ttrmivu, to strain ; the 

 second division of an ancient dramatic 

 poem ; that in which the plot entered 

 upon in the protasis was carried on and 

 strained, or worked up, till it arrived at 

 its height in the catastasis. The term has 

 also been used in medicine for the in- 

 crease of the paroxysm of a fever, and in 

 rhetoric for that part of an oration in 

 which the speaker addresses himself most 

 forcibly to the passions. 



EPITATH'IDES, txi and T/&J/CA;, I place. 

 In architecture, the crown of an entab- 

 lature. 



EPIT'EOPE, frirfowi, from tm and 

 rfttru, to turn ; a figure in rhetoric 

 whereby something is granted with a 

 view to gain an advantage. 



EPIZOOT'IC, from vn, upon, and air, 

 an animal ; an epithet for a disease -which 

 prevails among cattle in the same man- 

 ner as an epidemic does among men. 



EPIZOO'TY, an epizootic disease of which 

 murrain is an instance. 

 EP'OCH, ( from EJTO^IJ, a stop; a chro- 

 EP'OCHA, ) nological term for the point 

 of time at which a new computation is be- 

 gun and from which dates are numbered, 

 such as the Creation, 4004 B.C. ; the De- 

 luge, 2348 B.C.; the taking of Troy, 1184 

 i.e. ; the building of Rome, 753 B.C. ; the 

 Birth of Christ, the commencement of the 

 Christian era ; the Hegira, 622 A.D. 



EP'ODE, tx&iSr,, from tsti and uon, an 

 ode ; the third or last part of the ode 

 (q.v.). The term is now commonly used 

 for any little verse which follows one or 

 more great ones. Thus a pentameter 

 after a hexameter is an epode. 



POP'T^:, txoxTott, a name for those 

 who -were admitted to view the greater 

 mysteries of the Greek theology. 



EPROUVETT'E (French), an instrument 

 for ascertaining the relative strength of 

 different kinds of gunpowder. 



EP'SOM SALTS, a popular name for sul- 

 phate of magnesia, formerly obtained by 

 boiling down the mineral water found in 

 the vicinity of Epsom, but now prepared 

 from bittern and magnesian limestone. 



EPULO'NES, officers among the Romans 

 who had charge of the cpulum or sacred 

 mquets for Jupiter and the other gods. 

 E'QTJABLE. In mechanics, a term ap- 

 plied synonymously with uniform. Thus 

 equable motion is motion neither accele- 

 rated nor retarded. Motion is also said 



