hear it again

*1 : an inscription on or at a tomb or a grave in memory of the one buried there
2 : a brief statement commemorating or epitomizing a deceased person or something past

Example sentence:
Pam placed the flowers on her grandfather's grave, then stepped back to read the simple epitaph on the headstone: "In loving memory of John Gray: husband, father, soldier."

Etymology:

And were an epitaph to be my story
I'd have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

That's what Robert Frost had to say about epitaphs in The Lesson for Today (1942). We can't hope to wax so elegantly poetic, but if we were to write an epitaph for the word "epitaph," it might go something like this: "A classical upbringing and a French fling framed its days, before it gave English a word for 'final praise.'" It's a little premature ("epitaph" is alive and well in Modern English), but it’s etymologically accurate. English acquired "epitaph" from Middle French, which garnered it from the Latin word for "funeral oration"; the Latin term ultimately traces to the Greek "taphos," meaning "tomb" or "funeral."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.