Definition of "panegyric" [pan•e•gyr•ic]

• A formal eulogistic composition intended as a public compliment. (noun)
• Elaborate praise or laudation; an encomium. (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.

• "As arguedin this panegyric from the British Observer website, the 30-episode surreal crime drama subtly revolutionized television drama, moving it away from the superficial episodicsof the 80s towards the meatier, more literate fare that’s become the modern bastion of cable television from The Sopranos on down."
• "The exultant father, from his place in the Senate, expressed his thanks to Theodoric in an oration of panegyric, which is now no longer extant, but was considered by contemporaries a masterpiece of brilliant rhetoric."
• "The panegyric is a piece of courtly flattery in accordance with the cringing and fawning manners of the times."