A long and important period of time in history or in someone’s life, often marked by big changes. In science, it can mean a specific time division in geology or astronomy.
From Greek *epokhē* meaning 'a pause, fixed point in time', from *epékhein* 'to stop, hold back'. It came to mean a 'significant moment' and then a whole era defined by such a moment.
Epoch literally started as a 'pause' in time, like putting a pin in history and saying 'this matters'. Now we talk about epochs in geology that last millions of years, like the Holocene. The idea shows how humans carve up the endless flow of time into chunks we can name and study.
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