epoch
epoch Lexical Profile
epoch Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A notable or distinctive period of time in history or a person's life, typically marked by significant events, developments, or characteristics.
"The invention of the printing press marked the beginning of a new epoch in human communication."
A division of geological time that is a subdivision of a period and is itself subdivided into ages, corresponding to a series in chronostratigraphy.
"Paleontologists discovered well-preserved mammal fossils dating back to the Eocene epoch."
An arbitrarily fixed instant of time or date used as a reference point for timekeeping in astronomy or system clocks in computing, or a single complete pass through an entire training dataset in machine learning.
"The neural network's accuracy improved steadily over the first fifty epochs of training."
Word Nuance & Usage
In geology, an 'epoch' is a formal subdivision of a 'period', which is itself a subdivision of an 'era' (for example, the Holocene epoch within the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era).
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the early 17th century from Late Latin epocha, from Ancient Greek epochē, meaning 'a stoppage, fixed point of time, or pause', derived from epechein ('to hold back or arrest').