Words & WritingGreek → English
Panegyric
/ˌpænɪˈdʒɪrɪk/noun
A speech or piece of writing in elaborate praise of someone.
The Greek roots
πᾶν
pân
all
ἄγυρις
ágyris
gathering, assembly
Literally: “belonging to the whole assembly”
The story of the word
A πανήγυρις was a festival that drew all the Greeks together, Olympia above all, and the speech made there was the πανηγυρικός. Isocrates wrote the surviving model around 380 BC, using the occasion to argue that the cities should stop fighting each other and turn on Persia. Nothing in the Greek required flattery; the word picked that up in Latin, where emperors were praised at length and in public.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
panoramapandemicagorapanoply
In a sentence
The obituary read as a panegyric, with the awkward years quietly missing.
He delivered a panegyric on the retiring headmaster that ran twenty minutes past its slot.