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An epigraph is a short piece of writing put in a special place, not in the middle of a story. Two pictures cover almost every use. First: a short sentence written or cut on a statue, a stone, or a building — words that sit on the thing itself. Second, and this is the one students meet in novels: a short quote placed at the very front of a book or a chapter, before the real text starts. It is not the title and not the first paragraph; it is a little borrowed voice that hints at the feeling of what follows. Though actually, people do not call a quote in the middle of a chapter an epigraph; that is just a quotation. The word is quiet and . You will hear it from teachers, editors, and museum labels, not at the night market. There is also a rare verb, to epigraph a book, meaning to put such a line in front of it.
題詞；碑銘（書前短引句，或雕像、建築上的短句）
組成From Ancient Greek epigraphḗ, “inscription”, from epigráphō, “write upon”: epi- (on, upon) + gráphō (to write). So, writing put on something.
同家族的字
- epigramsame Greek ‘write upon’; a short, sharp poem or remark
- photographshares the -graph piece, ‘write’
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
epigraphnoun/ˈɛpɪˌɡɹæf/
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An inscription, especially on a building.
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A literary quotation placed at the beginning of a book or other text.
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mathematicssciencesThe set of all points lying on or above the function's graph.
epigraphverb/ˈɛpɪˌɡɹæf/
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To provide (a literary work) with an epigraph.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。