paradise

plural paradises · alternative obsolete paradize

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

   Living in paradise comes with a price.

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   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

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   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

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   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

4. countablefigurativelyuncountableA very pleasant experience.

   The weariest and most loathed worldly life That age, ache, penury and imprisonment Can lay on nature is a paradise To what we fear of death.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]

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   […] sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting—called to the paradise of union—I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so abundant a flow.

   1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VIII, in Jane Eyre. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 214

   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

5. countableobsoleteuncountablearchitectureAn open space within a monastery or adjoining a church, such as the space within a cloister, the open court before a basilica, etc.
6. countableobsoleteuncountableA churchyard or cemetery.
7. countableslanguncountableThe upper gallery in a theatre.
8. countableuncountableA 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

alternative obsolete paradize

1. Abrahamic religionsAlternative letter-case form of Paradise (“Heaven”).
2. Abrahamic religionsAlternative letter-case form of Paradise (“the Garden of Eden”).

   Up into Heav’n from Paradise in hast Th’ Angelic Guards ascended,

   1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 17-18

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   Not that Adam that kept the Paradise but that Adam that keeps the prison:

   c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]

   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

   If all was good and fair we met, ⁠This earth had been the Paradise ⁠It never look’d to human eyes Since Adam left his garden yet.

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXIV”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 41

   I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 132, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

present singular third person paradises · participle present paradising · participle past paradised · past paradised · alternative obsolete paradize

1. To place (as) in paradise.

   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!

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   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, Kist, courted, and imbrac’d.

   1632, Thomas Heywood, The Iron Age, London, act IV, scene 1

   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

   Synonyms: imparadise

2. obsoleteTo 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:

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   […] come all the daintieſt dainties of this toungue, and doe homage to your verticall ſtarre, that hath all the ſoveraine influences of the eloquent and learned conſtellations at a becke, and paradiſeth the earth with the ambroſiall dewes of his incomprehenſible witt!

   1593, Gabriell Haruey [i.e., Gabriel Harvey], Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. A Preparative to Certaine Larger Discourses, Intituled Nashes S. Fame, London: […] Iohn Wolfe, →OCLC; republished as John Payne Collier, editor, Pierces Supererogation: Or A New Prayse of the Old Asse. […] (Miscellaneous Tracts. Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I; no. 8), [London]: [s.n.], [1870], →OCLC, page 177

   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. obsoleterareTo 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,

   Synonyms: entrance, bewitch

1. lifestyleHeaven.
2. lifestyleThe Garden of Eden.
3. A town in Grenada.
4. A village in Suriname.
5. A settlement on the island of Saint Croix, United States Virgin Islands.
6. A number of places in the United States:
   1. A ghost town in Cochise County, Arizona.
   2. A town in Butte County, California.

      A visit to Paradise later on made it clear to Goodlin that the best way to help Paradise was to move back and build a home.

      2025 January 22, Taylor Haney, “Paradise, Calif. burned in 2018. Rebuilding it offers a look at what's ahead for LA”, in CapRadio, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2026

   3. A census-designated place in Mono County, California.
   4. A city in Kansas.
   5. A census-designated place in Montana.
   6. An unincorporated town and census-designated place in Clark County, Nevada.
   7. A township and census-designated place therein, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

      U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker gestures to the National Mall while showing a group of Amish men from Quarryville and Paradise the House speaker's balcony at the U.S. Capitol to on Sept. 26, 2018. Smucker is running for re-election to represent the 11th Congressional District.

      2018 October 21, Sam Janesch, “Meet Lloyd Smucker: Amish-born congressman seeking a second term on tax cuts and conservative record”, in Lancaster Online, archived from the original on 04 Sep 2022

   8. A city in Texas.
   9. A town in Utah.
   10. A number of other townships in the United States, listed under Paradise Township.
7. A town in Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
8. A community in Nova Scotia, Canada.
9. A number of places in Australia:
   1. A locality in the Inverell council area, north eastern New South Wales.
   2. A locality in Kentish council area, northern Tasmania.
   3. A locality in the Shire of Northern Grampians, central western Victoria.
10. A rural locality north of Glenorchy, Otago, New Zealand.
11. A number of places in England:
    1. A hamlet in Askam and Ireleth parish, Barrow-in-Furness district, Cumbria (OS grid ref SD2278).
    2. A hamlet in Painswick parish, Stroud district, Gloucestershire (OS grid ref SO8611).
    3. A suburb of Hemel Hempstead, Dacorum district, Hertfordshire (OS grid ref TL0506).
    4. A small riverside suburb in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear (OS grid ref NZ2163).
    5. A neighbourhood in central Birmingham, West Midlands (OS grid ref SP0686).
    6. A northern suburb of Coventry, West Midlands (OS grid ref SP3481).
12. A number of places in the Philippines:
    1. A barangay of Gonzaga, Cagayan, Philippines.
    2. A barangay of Ramon Magsaysay, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines.
    3. A barangay of Diplahan, Zamboanga Sibugay, Philippines.
    4. A barangay of Cabanglasan, Bukidnon, Philippines.
    5. A barangay of Banisilan, Cotabato, Philippines.