Word of the Day for Saturday, May 29, 2010 epoch \EP-uhk\, noun: 1. The beginning of a distinctive period in the history of anything. 2. A particular period of time marked by distinctive features or events. 3. A memorable date. 4. Geology. Any of several divisions of a geologic period during which a geologic series is formed. Compare age. 5. Astronomy. An arbitrarily fixed instant of time or date, usually the beginning of a century or half century, used as a reference in giving the elements of a planetary orbit or the like. b.The mean longitude of a planet as seen from the sun at such an instant or date. 6. Physics. The displacement from zero at zero time of a body undergoing simple harmonic motion. As a result, lawmakers can now submit draft constitutional amendments to the Diet, a practice that had been frozen for three years since the national voting bill was enacted. This is an epoch-making event in the postwar history of our nation's constitutional politics. -- "Lawmakers must face constitutional change", editorial, The Daily Yomiuri, May, 2010. Indeed, I've seen this epoch as an increasingly intimate collaboration between our biological heritage and a future that transcends biology. -- Ray Kurzweil, The singularity is near: when humans transcend biology Epoch has acquired a variety of precise meanings through the centuries: historical, in ancient Rome and Greece; geological and astronomical in modern times. Read the full entry | See synonyms | Comment on today's word | Suggest tomorrow's word Yesterday's word | Previous words | Help |
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