in Poetry and Rhetoric, an adjective expressing some quality of a substantive to which it is joined; or such an adjective as is annexed to substantives by way of ornament and illustration, not to make up an essential part of the description. Nothing, says Aristotle, tires the reader more than too great a redundancy of epithets, or epithets placed improperly; and yet nothing is so essential in poetry as a proper use of them. The writings of the best poets are full of them.