epoch noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com

Definition of epoch noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

epoch

noun
 
/ˈiːpɒk/
 
/ˈepək/
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  1. (formal or literary) a period of time in history, especially one during which important events or changes happen synonym era
    • The death of the emperor marked the end of an epoch in the country's history.
    Extra Examples
    • Welfare reform was an epoch in the history of US social policy.
    • an epoch of great social change
    • the importance of the computer in the present epoch
    Topics Timec2, Historyc2
    Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective
    • new
    • modern
    • present
    verb + epoch
    • mark
    preposition
    • during an/​the epoch
    • in an/​the epoch
    • epoch of
    phrases
    • the beginning of an epoch
    • the end of an epoch
    See full entry
  2. (geology) a length of time that is a division of a period
    • geological epochs
    Topics Timec2
  3. Word Originearly 17th cent. (in the Latin form epocha; originally in the general sense of ‘a date from which succeeding years are numbered’): from modern Latin epocha, from Greek epokhē ‘stoppage, fixed point of time’, from epekhein ‘stop, take up a position’, from epi ‘upon, near to’ + ekhein ‘stay, be in a certain state’.
See epoch in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee epoch in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English

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