epoch
noun /ˈiːpɒk/
/ˈepək/
- (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 ExamplesTopics Timec2, Historyc2- 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
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryadjective- new
- modern
- present
- …
- mark
- during an/the epoch
- in an/the epoch
- epoch of
- …
- the beginning of an epoch
- the end of an epoch
- (geology) a length of time that is a division of a period
- geological epochs
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’.