Meanings
- uncountableThe study of epitaphs.
Flattering epitaphology, though Drydens composed it, and polished Aberdeen granite, though Angelos chiseled it, could never atone for unkindnesses to the living.
1880 October 5, “Marriage: Was the Subject of Talmage’s Sunday Morning Sermon, Taking for His Text the Passage from Genesis, “This is Bone of My Bone and Flesh of My Flesh.” […]”, in The Memphis Daily Appeal, volume XXXIX, number 236, Memphis, Tenn., section “Hasty and Reckless Words”, page 3, column 42 more examples
At least consider what you’d write in your own will, or on your own stone. It could happen, after all, in 50 year, as your hour draws near, there’ll be a sociological sub-section – epitaphology – the study of your documented life: socio-ethical values decipherable in your tombstone script – and whether you deserve burial in a cemetery, in this enormous bibliographical bastion, or back behind the dam, as soulless pagans were.
1987, “Epiphany xi”, in Barry Callaghan, transl., Flowers of Ice, Toronto, Ont.: Exile Editions, translation of original by Imants Ziedonis, →ISBN, page 103In the field of epitaphology, Dr. Johnson opens his essay on the subject by adhering to the familiar topos of claiming new territory for critical exploration:[…]
2006, Literature of the Graveyard (Studies in the Literary Imagination; volume 39, number 1), page 93
Origin
Cite this entry
epitaphology. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/epitaphology
“epitaphology.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/epitaphology. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “epitaphology,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/epitaphology.
Source: epitaphology on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.