| eponym |
| Definition:
(1) A word that has been created from someone's name (e.g., the word martinet was derived from the name Marquis de Martinet [a Frenchman]). (2) A person from whose name an eponym has been created (e.g., the Marquis de Martinet himself). |
| Etymology: The word eponym was coined by contracting the word eponymous, which derives from the Greek eponymos, the giving of one's name to a thing (from Greek epi, upon + onyma, name). |
| Oxford English Dictionary: The first OED citation is from 1846: "Pelops is the eponym or name-giver of the Peloponnesus."
(Grote Greece i. vii. (1869) I. 150) |