1. Of or pertaining to an epoch or epochs.
1685. H. More, Paralip. Prophetica, 376. If the Epochal note should fall out either before the beginning of the first Semitime [etc.].
1827. A. & J. Hare, Guesses, Ser. II. (1873), 355. Shakespeare has given such a national tinge and epochal propriety to his characters.
1840. J. C. Hare, Vict. Faith, 67. We … hear the striking of one of its [Time’s] epochal hours.
1865. Draper, Intell. Devel. Europe, xxvi. 617. The three distinct modes of life occur in an epochal order.
2. Of the nature of an epoch; forming an epoch; epoch-making.
1857. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), II. 416. The more remarkable casualties and epochal crises of affairs ascribed to the interposition of the Deity.
1866. Alger, Solit. Nat. & Man, II. 80. His [David Hume’s] place in the history of philosophy is of epochal importance.
1877. Dawson, Orig. World, VI. 127, note. Warring … has suggested that the Mosaic days are epochal days.
