the.com/epitome
The one example so perfect it ruins all the others for you.
means A person or thing that is a perfect, concentrated example of a whole quality or type.
from From Greek epitomē, meaning 'an abridgment' or 'cutting short' — from epi- ('into') plus temnein ('to cut'). The original sense was literal: a summary or abstract of a longer work, the text cut down to its essential point. Over time the word drifted from 'the condensed version' to 'the thing that embodies the condensed essence of a quality' — so the epitome of elegance isn't a shortened elegance, it's elegance boiled down to its purest cut.
- pronunciation trap
- four syllables, silent nowhere, mocked everywhere
- original meaning
- greek for abridgment, a condensed summary
- irony
- a word about shrinking things people overinflate