Epigone

//ˈɛpəɡəʊn// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A follower or disciple.

    "India is run by gerontocrats and epigones: grey hairs and groomed heirs."

  2. 2
    an inferior imitator of some distinguished writer, artist, or musician wordnet
  3. 3
    An undistinguished or inferior imitator of a well known artist or their style.

    "While Shaler remained subordinate, he followed Agassiz’s intellectual lead, often with the epigone’s habit of exaggerating his master’s voice."

Synonyms

All synonyms
epigonimitator

Example

More examples

"The painter, though skilled, remained an epigone of the impressionists without a voice of his own."

Etymology

From French épigone, from Latin epigonus, from Ancient Greek ἐπίγονος (epígonos, “offspring, descendant”), from ἐπιγίγνομαι (epigígnomai, “I come after”), from ἐπί (epí, “upon”), from γίγνομαι (gígnomai, “I become”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.