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A paean is a song, poem, or speech full of praise, thanks, or joy after a win. Long ago in Greece, people sang a paean to a god after a battle, or when someone got well. Today it is a , rather grand word. You will meet it in reviews and speeches more than in the street. Though actually, we often stretch it: a writer may call an article “a paean to summer” even when nobody is singing. They just mean the piece says only warm, glowing things, almost like a love letter to that subject. A loud cheer can be called a paean too, but that is a heavy word for a shout.
頌歌；讚美之詞（書面）
組成From Latin paeān, a victory or thanks hymn, from Ancient Greek παιάν (paiān), a chant of thanksgiving or victory, often to Apollo under the name Paián. In Homer, Paián was the physician of the gods. A further link to an old idea of healing by magic, and to a Greek verb meaning “to hit” or “to blow”, has been suggested, but that part is not settled.
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
paeannoun/ˈpiː.ən/
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historicalA chant or song, especially a hymn of thanksgiving for deliverance or victory, to Apollo or sometimes another god or goddess; hence any song sung to solicit victory in battle.
- In the mean time I am going to that part, whence I think it convenient for the battle to begin; and, as I paſs, ſhall consider how things are with reſpect to ourſelves. When I come there, and we are juſt ready to engage, I ſhall begin the Pœan;^([sic]) and do you follow.
- Oh, happy ſoldier! had thy worth been try'd, / In pious daring, on thy country's ſide! / Oh, had thy ſword Iberian battles known, / Or purple with Cantabrian ſlaughter grown; / How had thy name in deathleſs annals ſhone! / But now no Roman Pæan ſhalt thou ſing, / Nor peaceful triumphs to thy country bring, / […] Oh, hapleſs victor thou! oh, vainly brave! / How haſt thou fought, to make thyſelf a ſlave!
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Any loud and joyous song; a song of triumph.
- The dissolution of this great Republic, and the probable failure of the mighty experiments in government of which it has been the theatre, will be a fine subject for political parties to illustrate their various prejudices. The upholders of despotism will sing pæans over its downfall—the lovers of liberty will mourn over what appears to be the stern condition of man, to run alternately the career of improvement and of degeneracy— […]
- Long before they reached this place, which was situated at the other end of the village, they heard the pæan of May carolled by a hundred voices; and, on entering the area, they immediately joined in the chorus.
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An enthusiastic expression of praise.
- The barbarian, wandering in nature's wilds, plucking the fruits as they grow, or destroying the game for his meat, and quenching his thirst with the waters of the gurgling rill, may furnish the poet with a theme for a pean to the goddess of Natural Liberty; but he will be a barbarian still, and his children after him, will roam over the same uncultivated wastes, and sleep in the same caves and dens, until they learn to associate with others and combine their efforts for mutual good.
- She moved proudly to the incessant music of a paean, aye! of a paean that was always crescendo. Its echoes followed her when she crossed the Atlantic, till they were lost in the louder, deeper, more blatant paean that rose for her from the shores beyond. All the stops of that “mighty organ, many-piped,” the New York press, were pulled out simultaneously, as far as they could be pulled, in Zuleika’s honour. She delighted in the din.
paeanverb/ˈpiː.ən/
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rareTo sing a paean; to praise.
- Then let the pæaned hymn aspire, / Nor longer court unholy gloom; / Let happier music wake thy lyre, / Than haunts the precincts of the tomb.
- Solemn, "as it were a pause in nature," was his [George Washington's] transit to eternity; thronged by the shades of heroes, his approach to the confines of bliss; pæaned by the songs of angels, his journey beyond the stars!
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。