EPOCH
Dictionary entry overview: What does epoch mean?
• EPOCH (noun)
The noun EPOCH has 3 senses:
1. a period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event
2. (astronomy) the precise date that is the point of reference for which information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is referred
3. a unit of geological time
Familiarity information: EPOCH used as a noun is uncommon.
Dictionary entry details
• EPOCH (noun)
Meaning:
A period marked by distinctive character or reckoned from a fixed point or event
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Synonyms:
epoch; era
Hypernyms ("epoch" is a kind of...):
period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "epoch"):
day (an era of existence or influence)
age; historic period (an era of history having some distinctive feature)
modern era (the present or recent times)
Instance hyponyms:
Caliphate (the era of Islam's ascendancy from the death of Mohammed until the 13th century; some Moslems still maintain that the Moslem world must always have a calif as head of the community)
Christian era; Common era (the time period beginning with the supposed year of Christ's birth)
Meaning:
(astronomy) the precise date that is the point of reference for which information (as coordinates of a celestial body) is referred
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Synonyms:
date of reference; epoch
Hypernyms ("epoch" is a kind of...):
date (the particular day, month, or year (usually according to the Gregorian calendar) that an event occurred)
Domain category:
astronomy; uranology (the branch of physics that studies celestial bodies and the universe as a whole)
Meaning:
A unit of geological time
Classified under:
Nouns denoting time and temporal relations
Hypernyms ("epoch" is a kind of...):
geologic time; geological time (the time of the physical formation and development of the earth (especially prior to human history))
Instance hyponyms:
Holocene; Holocene epoch; Recent; Recent epoch (approximately the last 10,000 years)
Paleocene; Paleocene epoch (from 63 million to 58 million years ago; appearance of birds and earliest mammals)
Eocene; Eocene epoch (from 58 million to 40 million years ago; presence of modern mammals)
Oligocene; Oligocene epoch (from 40 million to 25 million years ago; appearance of sabertoothed cats)
Miocene; Miocene epoch (from 25 million to 13 million years ago; appearance of grazing mammals)
Pliocene; Pliocene epoch (from 13 million to 2 million years ago; growth of mountains; cooling of climate; more and larger mammals)
Glacial epoch; Pleistocene; Pleistocene epoch (from two million to 11 thousand years ago; extensive glaciation of the northern hemisphere; the time of human evolution)
Holonyms ("epoch" is a part of...):
geological period; period (a unit of geological time during which a system of rocks formed)
