noun
Any word or phrase applied to a person or thing and used to describe an actual or attributed quality, as in The Great Communicator used to describe Ronald Reagan or man’s best friend used to describe a dog.
Also, a term of abuse, as in racial epithets, though an epithet need not be derogatory.
Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.
—Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
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