epostiles

Epostiles is a term that appears only rarely and is not widely recognized as a distinct concept in English-language scholarship. In most contexts, epostiles are thought to be variants or misspellings of epistles, the letters or written communications that form the genre of epistolary writing. The word epistle comes from Latin epistola, via Greek epistolē, meaning a letter. Because epostiles is not standard, its precise meaning depends on the source.

Usage and interpretation: As a misspelling, epostiles often appears as a typographical error for epistles in print or online; when encountered, it should be corrected to epistles or epistolary. As a coined term, in niche contexts such as fan fiction or game lore, epostiles may be used to denote a collection of messages within a story, analogous to an epistolary work.

Relation to established terms: In standard usage, the related word is epistle: a formal letter, especially one of the letters attributed to Paul in the New Testament. Epistolary: relating to or contained in letters; used of novels composed as a series of letters. Epistolary novel: a novel written as a correspondence between characters.

If you encounter the term, determine whether the author intends a standard sense (epistles) or a context-specific usage. There is no consensus on a separate dictionary sense for epostiles in major references.