Dictionary.com Word Of The Day
Sep. 15, 2016
eponym\EP-uh-nim\noun
1. a person, real or imaginary, from whom something, as a tribe,
nation, or place, takes or is said to take its name: Brut, the supposed
grandson of Aeneas, is the eponym of the Britons.
2. a word based on or derived from a person's name.
QuotesWhat Calvin Klein, designer, wanted to draw attention to was
Calvin Klein, trademark. Still, if some of the attention paid to the
man himself came along in the bargain; if the border between eponym and
product blurred, connoting a state of mind and a way of being that were
new and dark and strange and uniquely compelling--well, that didn't
hurt business a bit.
-- James Kaplan, "The Triumph of Calvinism," New York, September 18,
1995
Origin of eponymEponym is a back formation from the adjective
eponymous, which, in turn, can be traced to the Greek terms epí meaning
"upon," and ónyma, a dialectal variant of ónomameaning "name." It
entered English in the mid-1800s.More From Dictionary.comSubmit a
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