epistle

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: C1 — Advanced

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun a specially long, formal letter
  2. noun a book of the New Testament written in the form of a letter from an Apostle

Etymology

PIE word *h₁epi The noun is derived from Middle English epistel, epistole, pistel (“letter; literary work in letter form; written legend or story; spoken communication; (Christianity) one of the letters by an apostle in the New Testament; extract from such a letter read as part of the Mass”) [and other forms], and then partly: * from Old English epistol, epistola, pistol (“letter, epistle”), from Latin epistola (“letter, epistle; literary work in letter form”) (whence Late Latin epistola (“one of the letters by an apostle in the New Testament”)), from Ancient Greek ἐπῐστολή (epĭstolḗ, “letter; message”), from ἐπῐστέλλω (epĭstéllō, “to inform by, or to send, a letter or message”) (from ἐπῐ- (epĭ-, prefix meaning ‘on, upon’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁epi (“at; near; on”)) + στέλλω (stéllō, “to dispatch, send”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *stel- (“to locate; to place, put”))) + -η (-ē, suffix forming action nouns); and * from Anglo-Norman epistle, and Middle French epistle, epistele, epistole (“letter; (Christianity) one of the letters by an apostle in the New Testament; extract from such a letter read as part of the Mass”) (modern French épître), from Latin epistola (see above). The verb is derived from the noun.

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