An adjective or other descriptive phrase that is regularly used to characterize a person, place, or thing. Phrases such as "Ivan the Terrible" and "Jack the Giant Killer" are epithets. Homer created so many stock epithets in his Illiad and Odyssey that his name has been permanently associated with a particular type of epithet. The Homeric epithet consists of a compound adjective that is regularly used to modify a particular noun. Famous examples are "The wine-dark sea," "the grey-eyes goddess Athena," and "rosy-fingered dawn."