Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Epitome

Epitome , noun

[Latin, from Greek {not transcribed} a surface incision, also, and abridgment, from {not transcribed} to cut into, cut short; 'epi` upon + te`mnein to cut: compare French épitome. See Tome.]

1.
A work in which the contents of a former work are reduced within a smaller space by curtailment and condensation; a brief summary; an abridgement.
[An] epitome of the contents of a very large book. — Sydney Smith
2.
A compact or condensed representation of anything; something possessing conspicuously or to a high degree the qualities of a class.
An epitome of English fashionable life. — Carlyle
A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome. — Dryden