online medical dictionary | definition of paradise

Paradise is a subsystem (a set of packages) developed to implement inter-processes, inter-tasks and inter-machine communication for Ada programs under Unix. This subsystem gives the user full access to files, pipes, sockets (both Unix and Internet) and pseudo-devices.

Paradise has been ported to Sun, DEC, Sony MIPS, Verdex compiler, DEC compiler, Alsys/Systeam compiler.

Version 2.0 of the library. E-mail: <paradise-info@cnam.cnam.fr>.

(01 Feb 1992)

To affect or exalt with visions of felicity; to entrance; to bewitch.

1. The garden of Eden, in which Adam and Eve were placed after their creation.

2. The abode of sanctified souls after death. "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." (Luke xxiii. 43) "It sounds to him like her mother's voice, Singing in Paradise." (Longfellow)

3. A place of bliss; a region of supreme felicity or delight; hence, a state of happiness. "The earth Shall be all paradise." (Milton) "Wrapt in the very paradise of some creative vision." (Beaconsfield)

4. An open space within a monastery or adjoining a church, as the space within a cloister, the open court before a basilica, etc.

5. A churchyard or cemetery. Fool's paradise. See Fool, and Limbo. Grains of paradise.

<botany> See Whidah.

Origin: OE. & F. Paradis, L. Paradisus, fr. Gr. Paradeisos park, paradise, fr. Zend pairidaeza an inclosure; pairi around (akin to Gr) + diz to throw up, pile up; cf. Skr. Dih to smear, and E. Dough. Cf. Parvis.

(01 Mar 1998)