Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The middle part of a play that develops the action leading to the catastrophe.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That part of an ancient drama which embraces the main action of the play and leads on to the catastrophe; also, that part of an oration which appeals to the passions: opposed to protasis.
  • noun In logic, the consequent term of a proposition.
  • noun In medicine, the beginning and increase of a fever.
  • noun In music, the raising of the voice or the strings of an instrument from a lower to a higher pitch: opposed to anesis.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun That part which embraces the main action of a play, poem, and the like, and leads on to the catastrophe; -- opposed to protasis.
  • noun (Med.) The period of violence in a fever or disease; paroxysm.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The second part of a play, in which the action begins.
  • noun rhetoric The addition of a concluding sentence that merely emphasizes what has already been stated.
  • noun obsolete The period of violence in a fever or disease; paroxysm.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek, stretching, intensity, from epiteinein, epita-, to stretch, intensify : epi-, epi- + teinein, to stretch; see ten- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ἐπίτασις ("stretching"), from ἐπιτείνω ("to stretch"), from ἐπί + τείνω ("stretch").

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Examples

  • Which is incredible to think that the food you're putting in is also, it's almost the epitasis of globalization, you know, you are talking about growing local, consuming local, so that you can get rid some of the oil.

    CNN Transcript Apr 21, 2007 2007

  • Which is incredible to think that the food you're putting in is also, it's almost the epitasis of globalization, you know, you are talking about growing local, consuming local, so that you can get rid some of the oil.

    CNN Transcript Apr 22, 2007 2007

  • How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter, — with the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events, — may make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up of this drama. —

    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 2003

  • It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe.

    Ulysses 2003

  • How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter, — with the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events, — may make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working-up of this drama. —

    The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman 2003

  • -- Ed. [147] Epitasis, Greek epitasis the point in a play wherein the plot thickens.

    Commentary on Genesis - Volume 2 1509-1564 1996

  • It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe.

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

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