1. a period of time in history or a person's life, typically one marked by notable events or particular characteristics: "the Victorian epoch"
▪ the beginning of a distinctive period in the history of someone or something: "welfare reform was an epoch in the history of U.S. social policy"
▪ a division of time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself subdivided into ages, corresponding to a series in chronostratigraphy: "the Pliocene epoch"
▪ an arbitrarily fixed date relative to which planetary or stellar measurements are expressed.
Word Originearly 17th century (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’.
