[f. EPIGRAPH; see -GRAPHY.]
1. Inscriptions collectively.
1851. D. Wilson, Preh. Ann. (1863), II. IV. ii. 215. Its philological features appear to be equally foreign to Irish epigraphy.
1877. J. Northcote, Catacombs, I. vi. 113. The language of Christian epigraphy was not created in a day.
1882. Contemp. Rev., Dec., 921, note. The records of epigraphy constitute a fair test of the progress of Christianity as far as the upper classes are concerned.
2. The science concerned with the interpretation, classification, etc., of inscriptions. Often in narrower sense: The palæography of inscriptions.
1863. Sat. Rev., 18 July, 95. The science of epigraphy … seems still, as far as Britain is concerned, to be quite in its infancy.
1885. Athenæum, No. 2985. 45. Aramaic epigraphy has made startling progress in the course of the year.
