[a. Heb. sēden; etymologically ‘pleasure, delight.’]
1. The abode of Adam and Eve at their creation, Paradise; also more fully, The garden of Eden.
1382. Wyclif, Gen. iv. 16. Caym … dwellide at the eest plage of Eden.
1535. Coverdale, Gen. ii. 8. The Lorde God also planted a garden of pleasure in Eden. Ibid., iii. 23. Then the Lorde God put him out of the garden of Eden.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 143. Discovering … all the East of Paradise and Edens happie Plains.
1796–7. Coleridge, Poems (1862), 14. Ah flowers! which joy from Eden stole While innocence stood smiling by.
1860. Hawthorne, Marb. Faun, II. xi. 122. What the flaming sword was to the first Eden, such is the malaria to these sweet gardens and groves.
2. transf. and fig. A delightful abode or resting-place, a paradise; a state of supreme happiness.
a. 1225. Juliana, 79. He [the translator] mote beon a corn i godes guldene edene.
1593. Shaks., Rich. II., II. i. 42. This sceptred Isle This other Eden, demy paradise.
1665–9. Boyle, Occas. Refl. (1675), 320. He inherits … a gay and priviledg’d Plot of his Eden.
1792. S. Rogers, Pleas. Mem., II. 128. Who acts thus wisely mark the moral Muse A blooming Eden in his life reviews.
1830. Mrs. Bray, Fitz of Fitz-ford, i. (1884), 9. Mount Edgcombe, that Eden of Devon.
1842. Tennyson, Gardener’s Dau., 187. Henceforward squall nor storm Could keep me from the Eden where she dwelt.
Hence Edenic a., of or pertaining to Eden; Edenize v. trans., to make like Eden; to admit into Eden or Paradise; Edenized ppl. a., Edenization.
1605. J. Davies, Wittes Pilgrim., N iv. (T.). For pure Saints Edenizd vnfitt.
1850. Mrs. Browning, Poems, I. 75. By the memory of Edenic joys Forfeit and lost.
1862. D. Wilson, Preh. Man, iii. (1865), 22. The moral contrast which the savage presents to our conceptions of Edenic life.
1877. Wraxall, trans. V. Hugo’s Misérables, IV. v. 4. The Edenization of the world.
