I am not bragging too much because it starts with admitting some brief uncertainty. But yesterday, I used the word “epigraph” correctly. After thinking about it a minute and double-checking on the Internet.
Epigraph means a quote at the beginning of some written work, such as the poem that leads off the book I was reporting on.
I have to slow down and think a moment because I tend to confuse epigraph with epitaph, which is a brief note on the dead; epigram, which is a brief, pithy bit of wit; or epithet, which is a brief descriptive phrase for someone or something, most often disparaging these days (but what is not?).
I think I learned all these words in my college years, which blends them together even more. I guess they all share the same prefix from the Greek, epi, to mark.
I never confuse them with epiphenomenalism, though I also learned that word in college. But in Philosophy classes, not English classes, which kept it separate and siloed. And other obvious reasons.
