1. a person after whom something is named
2. a word derived from the name of a person

Examples

• John Harvard is the eponym of Harvard University.
• The Earl of Sandwich is the eponym for the sandwich.
• Many diseases are named after their eponyms, the doctors who first described them.
• The word ‘sandwich’ is an eponym derived from the Earl of Sandwich.
• Alexander Graham Bell is the eponym of the unit ‘decibel’.
• The term ‘boycott’ is an eponym from Charles Boycott’s name.
• Many eponyms in medicine honor the physicians who made important discoveries.