epicepic

Epic comes from Middle French épique, from Latin epicus, from Greek ἐπικός, from ἔπος ‘word, story’, ultimately from PIE *wekʷ- ‘to speak’.

1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*wekʷ-¹‘to speak’reconstructed
2. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*wékʷos¹reconstructed
3. Proto-Hellenicc. 2200–1600 BCE*wékʷos¹‘word, speech’reconstructed
4. Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEἔπος²épos‘word, story’
5. Ancient Greekc. 800–300 BCEἐπικός²epikós
6. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEepicus²
7. Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600épique²
8. Englishearliest quotation 1958epic²

1. ¹ Wiktionary, Ancient Greek ἔπος
2. ² Wiktionary, English epic
3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1958, David Gunston, Railways on the Screen: “These epics nearly always had runaway trains, nincompoops floundering…”.