paradise

Etymology

From Middle English paradis, paradise, paradys, from Late Old English paradīs, borrowed from Old French paradis, from Latin paradīsus, from Ancient Greek παράδεισος (parádeisos), ultimately from Proto-Iranian *paridayjah. Doublet of parvis. Displaced Old English neorxnawang.

noun

1. (chiefly religion) The place where sanctified souls are believed to live after death.
   Living in paradise comes with a price.
   This employment I considered as the only satisfaction I could offer to the memory of your unfortunate mother, and I flatter myself that if she could look down, it would give her angelic mind pleasure even in paradise, to behold me instilling into the minds of her children, sentiments congenial with her own. 1791, Charlotte Lennox, “Hermione”, in London, volume 1, William Lane, page 123
   I believe the soul in Paradise must enjoy something nearer to a perpetual adulthood than to any other state we know. 2004, Marilynne Robinson, Gilead, London: Virago, published 2005, page 189
   Kruban is a tidally-locked Venusian hothouse, its surface perpetually obscured by clouds of sulfur and carbon dioxides. The first group of krogan brought into orbit by the salarian uplift teams requested a trip to Kruban. The salarians at first thought the krogan were confused about the nature of Kruban's environment; the planet is named for a krogan mythological paradise in which honorable warriors feast on the internal organs of their enemies. In fact, krogan astronomers had correctly deduced the nature of Kruban in the years before the global holocaust. 2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Kruban
2. (Abrahamic religions) A garden where Adam and Eve first lived after being created.
   Government like dress is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. 1776, Thomas Paine, Common Sense, Philadelphia, page 1
3. (figurative) A very pleasant place, such as a place full of lush vegetation.
   an island paradise in the Caribbean
   The reader cannot but judge of the irksomeness of this situation to a mind like mine, in being daily exposed to new hardships and impositions, after having seen many better days, and been as it were, in a state of freedom and plenty; added to which, every part of the world I had hitherto been in, seemed to me a paradise in comparison of the West Indies. 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 6, in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, volume 1, London: for the author, page 243
   “Each household will have to have a tap with water running out of it all the year round,” he said. “And not only palm trees, but fruit trees too and flower gardens. It won’t take so many years to turn Golema Mmidi into a paradise. […]” 1968, Bessie Head, chapter 8, in When Rain Clouds Gather, New York: Simon & Schuster, published 1969, page 114
   On Earth, there is no poverty, no crime, no war. You look out the window of Starfleet Headquarters and you see paradise. Well, it's easy to be a saint in paradise, but the Maquis do not live in paradise. 1994, Ira Steven Behr, “The Maquis, Part II”, in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, season 2, episode 21, spoken by Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks)
4. (figurative) An ideal place for a specified type of person, activity, etc.
   a shoppers’ paradise
   But the idea that Singapore is a deregulated paradise is not borne out by reality, as anyone who has tried to dispose of a piece of used chewing gum there will know. 2019-12-17, Howard Davies, “Will the UK really turn into 'Singapore-on-Thames' after Brexit?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
5. (figurative) A very pleasant experience.
   He poured the last of the wine as Fanny, her face composed as she stroked his leg, after a paradise of expectation touched his aroused organ. 1979, Bernard Malamud, chapter 2, in Dubin’s Lives, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, page 62
6. (architecture, obsolete) An open space within a monastery or adjoining a church, such as the space within a cloister, the open court before a basilica, etc.
7. (obsolete) A churchyard or cemetery.
8. (slang) The upper gallery in a theatre.
9. A cake, often as a paradise slice.
   She was learned in decocting all kinds of herb-tea, infallible in curing burns, sprains, and scalds; and not a few pennyworths of gingerbread and paradise (for the latter she was very famous) went among her young customers, for which the till was never the richer. 1832, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Heath's Book of Beauty, 1833, The Knife, page 127

verb

1. To place (as) in paradise.
   Man himselfe […] euen then, when hee was first paradis’d in the Garden of pleasure, yet had something to doe in it, and was not suffered to walke idlely vp & downe like a Loyterer […] 1623, Giles Fletcher, The Reward of the Faithfull, London: Benjamin Fisher, Part 2, Chapter 1, p. 141
   Hadst thou seene Her, in whose breast my heart was paradis’d, 1632, Thomas Heywood, The Iron Age, London, act IV, scene 1
   1652, Edward Benlowes, Theophila, or, Loves Sacrifice, London: Henry Seile and Humphrey Moseley, Canto 7, stanza 81, p. 105, Yet dy’dst THOU not, but that (Spîrit quickned) free THOU might’st Saints Paradised see, Rejoyc’d Assurance give to Them rejoyc’d in THEE!
   1763, uncredited translator, “An Epistle of M. de Voltaire, upon his arrival at his estate near the Lake of Geneva, in March, 1755” in Francis Fawkes and William Woty (eds.), The Poetical Calendar, London: J. Coote, Volume 12, p. 48, […] blest thro’ every hour With blissful change of pleasure and of power, Couldst thou, thus paradis’d, from care remote, Rush to the world, and fight for Peter’s boat?
   […] A near-nude dance of dates, Brilliant in darkness — 1617, Then 1500, and so back, gyrates To reach — harsh braking on the Time Machine — To 1321, anno felice For Dante, paradised with Beatrice. 1995, Anthony Burgess, Byrne, New York: Carroll & Graf, Part 2, p. 63
2. (obsolete) To transform into a paradise.
   1613, Thomas Heywood, “Epithalamion” in A Marriage Triumphe Solemnized in an Epithalamium, London: Edward Marchant, She enters with a sweet commanding grace, Her very presence paradic’d the place:
   1828, Ann Willson, letter to her brother, in Familiar Letters of Ann Willson, Philadelphia: Wm. D. Parrish & Co., 1850, pp. 84-85, Then let us individually aim at paradising the world, and these efforts, though feeble, would doubtless be blessed to ourselves […]
3. (obsolete, rare) To affect or exalt with visions of happiness.
   1606, John Marston, Parasitaster, or The Fawn, London: W. Cotton, Act IV,#*: O we had first some long fortunate greate Politicians that were so sottishlie paradized as to thinke when popular hate seconded Princes displeasure to them, any vnmerited violence could seeme to the world iniustice,