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Praising

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Describing verse that conveys admiration, reverence, or celebratory tone, often through elevated diction or laudatory imagery.

Detailed Definition
An adjective describing language, tone, or verse that expresses praise, admiration, commendation, or laudatory sentiment. Praising poetry celebrates worthy subjects, expresses approval, or honors achievements and virtues. This quality characterizes occasional verse, encomiums, panegyrics, and ceremonial poetry. Praising tone may range from sincere tribute to conventional flattery. Related to epideictic rhetoric's function of praise and blame in ceremonial contexts.
Example
Example in poetry:
Pindar’s Olympian Odes praise athletic victors with elevated diction; Ben Jonson’s “To Penshurst” praises the Sidney estate as moral ideal; Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” praises laborers’ varied songs; Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Paul Robeson” praises the actor’s “deep-down song”; Tracy K. Smith’s “Declaration” ironically subverts praising by quoting the Declaration of Independence; Natalie Diaz’s “Ode to Frida Kahlo’s Eyebrows” praises through intimate, embodied detail.
Additional Notes
Describes tone and purpose. Common in epideictic rhetoric and occasional poetry. Related to celebration and commemoration.
Also Known As
Laudatory Encomiastical Panegyrical Commendatory Celebratory
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