Eponym: Difference between revisions

From Citizendium
Jump to navigation Jump to search
imported>Russell Potter
(brief account for now)
(No difference)

Revision as of 09:32, 1 June 2007

An eponym is the name of a person which has been applied to some non-personal thing of significance, most often a work of literature, a scientific invention, or a geographical discovery. The persan and the thing are then said to be "eponymous"; such the the relationship between Henry Hudson and Hudson Bay, Aeneas and the Aeneid, and Guglielmo Marconi and the Marconigram (and early proprietary name for a telegram. Self-titled books, such as Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, or any of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books have eponymous heroes.