Quintessence vs. Epitome: What's the Difference?
Quintessence and Epitome Definitions
Quintessence
The pure, highly concentrated essence of a thing.
Epitome
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).
Quintessence
The purest or most typical instance
The quintessence of evil.
Epitome
A brief summary, as of a book or article; an abstract.
Quintessence
In ancient and medieval philosophy, the fifth and highest essence after the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, thought to be the substance of the heavenly bodies and latent in all things.
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Epitome
The embodiment or encapsulation of a class of items.
Quintessence
A form of dark energy due to a hypothetical scalar field that permeates all space, the energy density of which varies across space and time, in contrast to the cosmological constant.
Epitome
A representative example.
Quintessence
A thing that is the most perfect example of its type; the most perfect embodiment of something; epitome, prototype.
Epitome
The height; the best; the most vivid.
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Quintessence
A pure substance.
Epitome
A brief summary of a text.
Quintessence
The essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form.
Epitome
A work in which the contents of a former work are reduced within a smaller space by curtailment and condensation; a brief summary; an abridgement.
[An] epitome of the contents of a very large book.
Quintessence
(alchemy) The fifth alchemical element, or essence, after earth, air, fire, and water that fills the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere.
Epitome
A compact or condensed representation of anything; something possessing conspicuously or to a high degree the qualities of a class.
An epitome of English fashionable life.
A man so various that he seemed to beNot one, but all mankind's epitome.
Quintessence
(physics) A hypothetical form of dark energy postulated to explain observations of an accelerating universe.
Epitome
A standard or typical example;
He is the prototype of good breeding
He provided America with an image of the good father
Quintessence
(transitive) To reduce to its purest and most concentrated essence.
Epitome
A brief abstract (as of an article or book)
Quintessence
The fifth or last and highest essence or power in a natural body. See Ferment oils, under Ferment.
Quintessence
Hence: An extract from anything, containing its rarest virtue, or most subtle and essential constituent in a small quantity; pure or concentrated essence.
Let there be light, said God; and forthwith lightEthereal, first of things, quintessence pure,Sprung from the deep.
Quintessence
The most characteristic form or most perfect example of some type of object.
Quintessence
To distil or extract as a quintessence; to reduce to a quintessence.
Quintessence
The fifth and highest element after air and earth and fire and water; was believed to be the substance composing all heavenly bodies
Quintessence
The purest and most concentrated essence of something
Quintessence
The most typical example or representative of a type
