proto-epic

noun

An underlying or root epic upon which many later epics are variants.

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Meanings

nounproto-epic (plural proto-epics)

plural proto-epics

  1. An underlying or root epic upon which many later epics are variants.

    Just so, two IE-speaking cultures sang of an epoch-marking war, brought on by the chief god to relieve the earth of mortals. Do these then descend from a proto-epic, sung by people who spoke the language ancestral to Greek and Sanskrit?

    2025 December 12, Tom Hercules Davies, “Horses, Wheels, Languages: Greek, Mesopotamian and Indic Epic on the Eurasian Steppe”, in The Classical Quarterly, volume 75, number 1, page 8

Origin

From proto- + epic.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

proto-epic. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/proto-epic

MLA

“proto-epic.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/proto-epic. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “proto-epic,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/proto-epic.

Source: proto-epic on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.