Definition of "paean" [paean]

• A song of joyful praise or exultation. (noun)
• A fervent expression of joy or praise: "The art . . . was a paean to paganism” ( Will Durant). (noun)
• An ancient Greek hymn of thanksgiving or invocation, especially to Apollo. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I've always wanted to use the word paean in a post --"
• "Its impact on Reilly, who was at Wilson's bedside at the very end, ran much deeper, and while this work is explicitly signalled as a 'paean' - literally a song of joy or exultation - it is one etched in melancholy notes."
• "How else to explain Vogue editor Anna Wintour's decision this month to publish a 3,000-word paean to that "freshest and most magnetic of first ladies," Syria's Asma al-Assad?"