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n. 1. A representative or perfect example of a class or type: "He is seen ... as the epitome of the hawkish, right-of-center intellectual" (Paul Kennedy). 2. A brief summary, as of a book or article; an abstract. [Latin epitomē, a summary, from Greek, an abridgment, from epitemnein, to cut short : epi-, epi- + temnein, to cut; see tem- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
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