paradise

Noun

paradise (countable and uncountable, plural paradises)

1. The place where sanctified souls are believed to live after death.
   • Living in paradise comes with a price.
   • 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

   Synonyms:

   Heaven

2. (figuratively) A very pleasant place, such as a place full of lush vegetation.
   • Near-synonym: rose garden
   • an island paradise in the Caribbean

   Synonyms:

   earthly paradise, heaven, rose garden

3. (figuratively) An ideal place for a specified type of person, activity, etc.
   • a shoppers’ paradise
   • 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
4. (figuratively) A 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]...
   • […] 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
5. (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.
6. (obsolete) A churchyard or cemetery.
7. (slang) The upper gallery in a theatre.
8. 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

paradise (third-person singular simple present paradises, present participle paradising, simple past and past participle paradised)

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,
     Kist, courted, and imbrac’d.1632, Thomas Heywood, The Iron Age, London, act IV, scene 1

   Synonyms:

   imparadise

2. (obsolete) To transform into a paradise.
   • […] 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...
   • She enters with a sweet commanding grace,
     Her very presence paradic’d the place:1613, Thomas Heywood, “Epithalamion” in A Marriage Triumphe Solemnized in an Epithalamium, London: Edward Marchant
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,

   Synonyms:

   entrance, bewitch

Proper noun capitalized: Paradise

IPA/ˈpæɹ.ə.daɪs/

Paradise

1. Heaven.
2. The 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 ghost town in Cochise County, Arizona.
7. 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
8. A census-designated place in Mono County, California.
9. A city in Kansas.
10. A census-designated place in Montana.
11. An unincorporated town and census-designated place in Clark County, Nevada.
12. 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