encomium

noun

1. Warm praise, especially a formal expression of such praise; a tribute.

   “I rejoined our people, and expected a reprimand for having forced the enemy without orders; though I had my excuse ready. But here I was mistaken; for I met with nothing but encomiums.”

   “...and where he never failed to lavish on me every gift his fortune could supply, delight me by the encomiums he bestowed on my music and needlework (always an object of importance in a nunnery), and prove, by his admiring looks and his tender tones, how entirely he loved me.”

   “"I never seen their like," was Lassiter's encomium, "an' in my day I've seen a sight of horses."”

   “Many a new locomotive class has received encomiums in these columns because its early work was outstanding, judged by the then prevailing standards.”

   “I am, you will agree, mature, and in my earlier days I won no little praise for my skill at hunt-the-slipper. I remember one of the hostesses whose Christmas parties I attended comparing me to a juvenile bloodhound. An extravagant encomium, of course, but that is what she said.”

2. (rhetoric)A general category of oratory.
3. (rhetoric)A method within rhetorical pedagogy.
4. The eighth exercise in the progymnasmata series.
5. A genre of literature that included five elements: prologue, birth and upbringing, acts of the person's life, comparisons used to praise the subject, and an epilogue.