1.  epitaph(n = noun.communication) - an inscription on a tombstone or monument in memory of the person buried there;
is a kind of inscription, lettering

2.  epitaph(n = noun.communication) - a summary statement of commemoration for a dead person;
is a kind of commemoration, memorial, remembrance

1.  An inscription on, or at, a tomb, or a grave, in memory or commendation of the one buried there; a sepulchral inscription. [1913 Webster]
"Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb." [1913 Webster]

2.  A brief writing formed as if to be inscribed on a monument, as that concerning Alexander: “Sufficit huic tumulus, cui non sufficeret orbis.” [1913 Webster]

   To commemorate by an epitaph. [1913 Webster]
"Let me be epitaphed the inventor of English hexameters." [1913 Webster]

   To write or speak after the manner of an epitaph. [1913 Webster]
"The common in their speeches epitaph upon him . . . “He lived as a wolf and died as a dog.”" [1913 Webster]

epitaph, n. words written in memory of a person who has died, esp. as a tomb inscription.

Etymology:
ME f. OF epitaphe f. L epitaphium f. Gk epitaphion funeral oration (as EPI-, taphos tomb)

N  interment, burial, sepulture, inhumation, obsequies, exequies, funeral, wake, pyre, funeral pile, cremation, funeral, funeral rite, funeral solemnity, kneel, passing bell, tolling, dirge, cypress, orbit, dead march, muffled drum, mortuary, undertaker, mute, elegy, funeral, funeral oration, funeral sermon, epitaph, graveclothes, shroud, winding sheet, cerecloth, cerement, coffin, shell, sarcophagus, urn, pall, bier, hearse, catafalque, cinerary urn, grave, pit, sepulcher, tomb, vault, crypt, catacomb, mausoleum, Golgotha, house of death, narrow house, cemetery, necropolis, burial place, burial ground, grave yard, church yard, God's acre, tope, cromlech, barrow, tumulus, cairn, ossuary, bone house, charnel house, dead house, morgue, lich gate, burning ghat, crematorium, crematory, dokhma, mastaba, potter's field, stupa, Tower of Silence, sexton, gravedigger, monument, cenotaph, shrine, grave stone, head stone, tomb stone, memento mori, hatchment, stone, obelisk, pyramid, exhumation, disinterment, necropsy, autopsy, post mortem examination, zoothapsis, burried, burial, funereal, funebrial, mortuary, sepulchral, cinerary, elegiac, necroscopic, in memoriam, post obit, post mortem, beneath the sod, hic jacet, ci-git, RIP, requiescat in pace, the lone couch of his everlasting sleep, without a grave- unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown, in the dark union of insensate dust, the deep cold shadow of the tomb, Special Vitality.