subs. (popular).—1. The gallery of a theatre; THE GODS (q.v.). Fr. le paradis.
2. (university).—A grove of trees outside St. John’s College, Oxford.
3. (venery).—The female pudendum: cf. THE WAY TO HEAVEN: see MONOSYLLABLE.
d. 1638. CAREW, A Rapture, 59.
| So will I rifle all the sweets that dwell | |
| In thy delicious PARADISE. |
1640. HERRICK, The Discription of a Woman, 72. This Loue-guarded parradice.
c. 1697. BEHN, Poems (2nd ed.), 70, ‘The Disappointment.’
| His daring Hand that Altar seiz’d, | |
| Where Gods of Love do Sacrifice: | |
| That Awful Throne, the PARADISE. |
FOOL’S PARADISE, subs. phr. (colloquial).—A state of fancied security, enjoyment, &c.
1528. ROY and BARLOW, Rede me and be nott wrothe [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 446]. A FOLES PARADYSE.
1595. SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet, ii. 4. If ye should lead her into a FOOL’S PARADISE, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour.
1607. DEKKER, Westward Ho! v. 1. Since we ha’ brought ’em thus far into a FOOL’S PARADISE, leave ’em in’t.
1733. N. BAILEY, trans. The Colloquies of Erasmus (1900), ii. 173. The designing courtier had been for a long time kept in FOOL’S PARADISE.
1896. COTSFORD DICK, The Ways of the World: Vers de Sociéte, 20, ‘The Débutante’s Dream.’
| So she dreamt of a PARADISE (fool so fair!) | |
| Whose glories she now is allowed to share. |
1898. M. E. BRADDON, Rough Justice, 22. She had exchanged a wretched wandering life with her father for a FOOL’S PARADISE at the West End of London.
TO HAVE (or GET) A PENN’ORTH OF PARADISE, verb. phr. (common).—To take drink, esp. gin: see SCREWED.
