An episeme is the meaning of the grammatical relationship between morphemes. This is the so-called 'meaning of the construction'. In the combination 'poor man' the first constituent 'poor' describes the quality of the second, namely, 'man'. The constructions 'small watch', 'loud tie', and 'angry aunt' have substantially the same episemes. [...] The episemes of such attributives as 'small', 'loud', and 'angry' plus a substantive expression may be described as defining a character-substance relationship.
- Nida (1951), a pag.10-11