Word of the Day

: August 10, 2023

encomium

noun en-KOH-mee-um

What It Means

Encomium refers to an expression of glowing and warmly enthusiastic praise.

// Upon achieving EGOT status, the actor was deservedly showered with encomiums from across the entertainment world.

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encomium in Context

“Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright) is desperately trying to save the life of her brother, King T’Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman) … until her mother, Ramonda (Angela Bassett), arrives to deliver the dreaded news: ‘Your brother is with the ancestors.’ Thus does ‘Wakanda Forever’ address, head on, the tragic loss of Boseman, who died of colon cancer in 2020. In a fitting tribute, the shuffle of iconic characters that opens every Marvel movie here is composed entirely of images of Boseman, a moving encomium to a gifted and charismatic actor who left the stage much too soon.” — Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2022

Did You Know?

Kudos to encomium for being a marvelous, magnificent, must-have word for high praise for over four centuries—at least in formal speech and writing. Indeed, like its synonym panegyric, encomium (from the Greek word enkōmion, meaning “celebration”) has seen a steady drop in usage since the early 1800s and is rarely encountered outside of literary or highfalutin contexts. It does pop up in pop culture now and again, however. Music fans of a certain generation may remember a host of their favorite artists, from Tori Amos to Stone Temple Pilots, paying tribute to Led Zeppelin in 1995 on the appropriately titled album Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin. And more recently, the famously loquacious television series Gilmore Girls dropped encomium no less than five times in a 2016 episode featuring “Stars Hollow: The Musical,” a show-within-a-show featuring the line “Not so fast with the encomiums!” Of course, you may dish out your own encomiums in any manner or velocity you wish—and verily we shall tip our chapeaux.