paradise

What it means

1. countableuncountablelifestyleThe place where sanctified souls are believed to live after death.

   Living in paradise comes with a price.

   5 more examples

   And Jesus said unto him [the malefactor], Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 23:43

   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

   The imagination of the Hindoo paints his Swergas as "profuse of bliss," and all the joys of sense are collected in the Paradise of the Mussulman.

   1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 71

   He hears his daughter's voice, / Singing in the village choir, / And it makes his heart rejoice. / It sounds to him like her mother's voice, / Singing in Paradise!

   1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Miscellaneous.] w:The Village Blacksmith.”, in Ballads and Other Poems, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1842, →OCLC, stanzas 5–6, page 101

   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

   Synonyms: Heaven, heaven

2. countablefigurativelyuncountableA very pleasant place, such as a place full of lush vegetation.

   Near-synonym: rose garden

   5 more examples

   an island paradise in the Caribbean

   Let me live here ever; So rare a wonder’d father and a wife Makes this place Paradise.

   1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]

   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)

   Synonyms: earthly paradise, heaven, rose garden

3. countablefigurativelyuncountableAn ideal place for a specified type of person, activity, etc.

   a shoppers’ paradise

   2 more examples

   And at this point, also, begins the pilot’s paradise: a wide river hence to New Orleans, abundance of water from shore to shore, and no bars, snags, sawyers, or wrecks in his road.

   1883, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 40, in Life on the Mississippi, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, →OCLC

   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 December 17, Howard Davies, “Will the UK really turn into 'Singapore-on-Thames' after Brexit?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

In a sentence

Living in paradise comes with a price.

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Iranian*paridayjah
2. Ancient Greekπαράδεισος
3. Latinparadīsus
4. Old Frenchparadis
5. Old Englishparadīs
6. Middle Englishparadis
7. Englishparadise

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.