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▪ I. paragon, n. (a.)|ˈpærəgən|
Also (6 parageon, peragon, 6–7 parragon), 6–8 paragone.
[a. OF. paragon (15th c.), now parangon m, in OF. also para(n)gonne fem., ad. It. paragone (also parangone) m., ‘a triall or touch-stone to try gold, or good from bad’ (so in Dino Compagni a 1324, and Boccaccio; also in 15th c. Fr.: see Godef.); ‘a comparison or conferring together; a paragon, a match, a compare, an equal’ (Florio 1611). Cf. Sp. parangon or paragon ‘an equall, a fit man to match him, one comparable with’ (Minsheu 1599). See below.]
A. n.
I.
1. A pattern or model of excellence. a. A person supreme in merit or excellence.
a1548Hall Chron., Hen. V 33 b, Thys prince was almost the Arabicall Phenix, and emongest his predecessors a very Paragon. 1557Tottell's Misc. (Arb.) 178 But therwas neuer Laura more then one, And her had Petrarke for his paragone. 1577B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. (1586) 168 She was the very Phenix and Parageon of all the Gentlewomen that I euer knewe. 1592Greene Philom. Wks. (Grosart) XI. 175 The peragon of Italy for honorable grace. 1689Shadwell Bury Fair ii. i, Your ladyship..has been long held a paragon of perfection. 1784J. Potter Virtuous Villagers II. 159 He is a paragon of his sex. 1833H. Martineau Charmed Sea ix. 133 She will turn out a paragon of a wife. 1871R. Ellis Catullus xxxvii. 17 You chiefly, peerless paragon of the tribe long-lock'd,..Egnatius.
b. A thing of supreme excellence.
1601Holland Pliny II. 372 [Magic] is at this day reputed by most nations of the earth, for the paragon & chief of al sciences. a1656Bp. Hall Rem. Wks. (1660) 22 We came down to Antwerp, the paragon of Cities. 1756C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. Ded., The dissolved civil constitution, that paragon of perfect polity. 1861J. Ruffini Dr. Antonio x, Sir John..pronounced it to be the paragon of easy-chairs.
†2. A match; a mate, companion; a consort in marriage; a rival, competitor. (Also of a thing.)
1566Painter Pal. Pleas. I. 45 Cyrus our prince and lorde, whose paragon wee haue chosen you to bee. 1591Spenser M. Hubberd 1026 Love and Lordship bide no paragone. 1596― F.Q. vi. ix. 11 He..her worthy deemed To be a Princes Paragone esteemed. 1594Chapman Hymnus in Cynthiam Wks. (1875) 15/1 Through noblest mansions, Gardens and groves, exempt from paragons. 1762J. Hall-Stevenson Crazy Tales 43 You cannot fish up His like and paragon again. 1824J. H. Wiffen tr. Tasso iv. xlvi, None but himself could be his paragon in vice.
†3. Comparison; competition, emulation, rivalry.
[Cf.1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie iii. xix. (Arb.) 241.] 1590Spenser Muiopotmos 274 Minerva..deign'd with her the paragon to make. 1590― F.Q. iii. iii. 54 Wemen valorous, Which have full many feats..Performd, in paragone of proudest men. 1596Ibid. v. iii. 24 Then did he set her by that snowy one,..Of both their beauties to make paragone. 1664Evelyn tr. Freart's Archit. Ep. Ded. 1 A Work..worthy to go in paragon with it.
II. Specific and technical applications.
4. a. A perfect diamond; now applied to those weighing more than a hundred carats. [So in mod.F.] In quot. 1616 fig. of a person.
1616B. Jonson Devil an Ass iii. i, He is no great large stone, but a true paragon, He has all his corners. 1622Malynes Anc. Law Merch. 75 The fassets must be industriously wrought, which in great stones of 10 or 12 Carrats maketh them to be Paragons, that is to say, in all perfection. 1647R. Stapylton Juvenal 241 That stone, which for a paragon was set. 1863Chambers' Bk. of Days I. 484/1 Only six very large diamonds (called paragons) are known.
†b. Also paragon-stone. Obs.
1558Warde tr. Alexis' Secr. i. 94 b, Take Cristall, or paragon stone. 1573Art of Limming 9 Take a beade of Christall or a Paragon stone. 1629Maxwell tr. Herodian (1635) 250 His Rings set with Paragon Stones. 1698Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 213 The Diamond..Without Spots or Foulness, is called a Paragon-stone.
†5. A kind of double camlet; a stuff used for dress and upholstery in the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Obs. [Cf. F. parangon de Venise, the finest silk stuffs from Venice (Littré).]
c1605Allegations of Worsted Weavers (B.M. Add. MS. 12504, art. 64) The Paragon, Peropus, and Philiselles may be affirmed to be double chamblet; the difference being only the one was double in the warpe, and the other in the w[oo]ff. 1618Naworth Househ. Bks. (Surtees) 74, xij yards of water paragon for my Lady at vs. viijd...5 yards of French green paragon..xxvs. xd. 1659–60Pepys Diary 8 Mar., Took my wife by land to Paternoster Row, to buy some Paragon for a petticoat and so home again. 1674Lond. Gaz. No. 852/4 Hangings for a Room of Green Paragon. 1678Flemings in Oxford (O.H.S.) I. 255, 7 yards & an halfe of black Paragon for a [Undergraduate's] Gowne. 1739Observ. Wool & Wooll. Manuf. in Beck Draper's Dict. 245 Paragon..stuff of combing wool.
attrib.1719D'Urfey Pills (1872) III. 173 The Plowman, the Squire, the Erranter Clown, At home she subdued in her Paragon Gown.
6. A kind of black marble: see quot. 1753. [F. parangon a kind of black marble of Egypt and Greece (Littré).] Usu. written paragone.
[1632Lithgow Trav. vi. 267 The floore being curiously indented with intermingled Alabaster and black shining Parangone.] 1645Evelyn Diary May (1879) I. 227 A niche of paragon for the statue of the Prince now living. 1753Chambers Cycl. Supp., Paragone,..the name given by many to the basaltes, a black marble, used as a touchstone. 1848J. D. Dana Man. Mineral. vii. 349 The Neroantico marble of the Italians is an ancient deep black marble; the paragone is a modern one, of a fine black color, from Bergamo. 1888G. H. Blagrove Marble Decoration 68 In Italy a black marble, sometimes called Paragone, is found mixed with marble of inferior quality at Castle Nuovo, in Piedmont [etc.]. 1894H. W. Pullen Handbk. Anc. Roman Marbles ii. 140 The term Paragone has..been loosely applied to several very black columns, such as those at a Tomb in the Winter Choir of St. John Lateran. 1955M. H. Grant Marbles & Granites of World 71 Paragone. [Locality.] Bergamo, Italy. [Characteristics.] A pure, fine black.
7. Printing. Name of a large size of type intermediate between Great Primer and Double Pica, about 33/4 lines to the inch. Now usually called ‘two-line Long Primer’.
1706Specimen of Letters b 1, in H. Hart Century of Oxf. Typog. 67 Paragon Roman (Bought 1706). Paragon Italick (Bought 1706). 1824J. Johnson Typogr. II. 77 Paragon is the only letter that has preserved its name, being called so by all the printing nations. 1843Penny Cycl. XXV. 456/1 Of types larger than those employed for book-work, the first, in an ascending series, is called Paragon. 1887T. B. Reed Old Eng. Letter Foundries 34 The first named [Trafalgar] has disappeared in England, as also has Paragon.
B. adj. [Perh. originating in attrib. use of the n.] Of surpassing excellence, perfect in excellence. (See also 4 b.)
1601Holland Pliny I. 457 We may be bold to compare them with that Paragon-coronet of the Greeks, which passeth al others. 1632Wentworth Let. 24 Sept. in Gardiner Hist. Chas. I, I. Pref. 14 If I do not fall square, and..paragon, in every point of duty to my master. 1672Sir T. Browne Let. to Friend §29 Those jewels were paragon, without flaw, hair, ice, or cloud. 1825R. P. Ward Tremaine III. xv. 345 Presuming to have had opinions, which this paragon Lord does not approve. [Note. This word appears first in Italian (14th c.), whence in Fr., Sp., etc. The notion of Diez that paragon originated in Sp., from the prep. phrase para con (which is sometimes = ‘in comparison with’) is historically untenable. But it is not certain whether the original sense of It. paragone was ‘comparison’, or ‘touch-stone’; in the latter sense it might stand for pietra di paragone. For the etymology, Tobler (Zeitschr. Rom. Phil. (1880) IV. 373) suggested derivation from the Gr. vb. παρακονᾶν ‘to sharpen or whet one thing against another’, f. ἀκόνη ‘whetstone’, supposing that this may have developed the sense ‘touch-stone’, or that the It. vb. paragonare may have been formed from παρακονᾶν, with the sense of ‘try or compare by rubbing together’, whence paragone the act of doing this, pietra di paragone ‘comparison stone, touch-stone’. A med.Gr. παρακόνη is cited as applied to a smooth hard stone used to polish the gold laid on in illuminating. But the suggestion presents various difficulties.]
Add:[A.] [I.] c. One who (occas. that which) is a model or exemplar of (some admired or excellent quality).
1689Shadwell Bury Fair ii. i, Your ladyship..has been long held a paragon of perfection. 1756C. Lucas Ess. Waters I. Ded., The dissolved civil constitution, that paragon of perfect polity. c1874E. Dickinson Poems (1955) III. 907 We commend ourselves to thee Paragon of Chivalry. 1906Galsworthy Man of Property ii. i. 3 Having watched a tree grow from its planting—a paragon of tenacity, insulation, and success, amidst the deaths of a hundred other plants less fibrous, sappy, and persistent. 1934R. Graves I, Claudius ii. 36 She is a paragon of matronly modesty. 1988A. N. Wilson Tolstoy vi. 132 Tolstoy finds it hard to account for the fact that this paragon of virtue should have died in the arms of a prostitute.
▪ II. paragon, v.|ˈpærəgən|
Also 7 -one, parangon, parragon.
[f. paragon n.: cf. F. para(n)gonner, It. para(n)gonare ‘to equall, to paragone, to compare’ (Florio), Sp. parangonar: see prec.]
1. trans. To place side by side; to parallel, compare. (Now archaic or poetic.)
a1586Sidney Arcadia i. (1590) L iij, The picture of Pamela..whiche in little forme he ware in a Tablet..purposing..to paragon the little one with Artesias length. 1600O. E. (? M. Sutcliffe) Repl. to Libel i. i. 1 An excellent and singular woman, to bee parangoned with the famous women of ancient time. 1606Shakes. Ant. & Cl. i. v. 71. 1667 Milton P.L. x. 426 Lucifer, so by allusion calld, Of that bright Starr to Satan paragond. 1894A. Austin in Blackw. Mag. Sept. 312 Baby billows, mere cradles rather..when paragoned with these monsters of the real deep.
2. To match, to mate. (Now poetic, etc.)
c1615Sir W. Mure Sonn. vii, My loue, my lyfe..Bright spark of beutie, paragon'd by few. 1697Evelyn Numism. vii. 239 Such proof of their Abilities..as may rightly paragon them with..the Ancients. 1835Lytton Rienzi vi. v, [It was] a virtue nature could not paragon, words could not repay. 1872Browning Fifine xxiii, To join your peers, paragon charm with charm, As I shall show you may.
†3. To excel, surpass. Obs.
1604Shakes. Oth. ii. i. 62 He hath atchieu'd a Maid That paragons description, and wilde Fame.
†4. To set forth as a paragon or perfect model.
1613Shakes. Hen. VIII, ii. iv. 230 We are contented To weare our mortall State to come, with her..before the primest Creature That's Parragon'd o' th' World.
†5. To serve as a paragon or model of; to typify, exemplify. Obs.
1617Collins Def. Bp. Ely i. Abstr. of Contents ii, Peter the fitter to paragon the Church, because a great sinner and so apt to shew mercie.
†6. intr. To compare, compete, vie with. Obs.
1620Shelton Quix. II. iv. ix. 123 Few or none could for Feature paragon with her, and much less excel her. |