Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition

‖

Noun.

[NL., fr. Gr. [GREEK] a stretching, fr. [GREEK] to stretch upon or over;

ἐπί

upon + [GREEK] to stretch.]

That part which embraces the main action of a play, poem, and the like, and leads on to the catastrophe; – opposed to

protasis

(Med.)

The period of violence in a fever or disease; paroxysm.

Dunglison.

epitasis ‎(plural epitases)

(ancient drama) The second part of a play, in which the action begins.
- 1760, Laurence Sterne, The Life & Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Penguin, page 88:
  How my uncle Toby and Corporal Trim managed this matter,—with the history of their campaigns, which were no way barren of events,—may make no uninteresting under-plot in the epitasis and working up of this drama.
- 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses:
  It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe.
(rhetoric) The addition of a concluding sentence that merely emphasizes what has already been stated.
(obsolete) The period of violence in a fever or disease; paroxysm.
(Can we find and add a quotation of Dunglison to this entry?)