"praise highly, sing the praises of," late 14c., from Old French lauder "to praise, extol," from Latin laudare "to praise, commend, honor, extol, eulogize," from laus (genitive laudis) "praise, fame, glory." Probably from an echoic PIE root *leu- and cognate with Old English leoð "song, poem, hymn," from Proto-Germanic *leuthan (source also of Old Norse ljoð "strophe," German Lied "song," Gothic liuþon "to praise"). Related: Lauded; lauding.
"expressing praise," 1550s, from French laudatoire and directly from Late Latin laudatorius, from Latin laudare "to praise" (see laud).
"morning Church service in which psalms of praise to God (Psalms cxlviii-cl) are sung," mid-14c., from Old French Laudes "sung devotions; Lauds;" see laud.
early 15c., from Old French laudable "praiseworthy, glorious" and directly from Latin laudabilis "praiseworthy," from laudare "to praise, commend, extol" (see laud). Related: Laudably.
"act of praising, commendation," late 15c., from Latin laudationem (nominative laudatio) "a praising, commendation," noun of action from past participle stem of laudare "to praise" (see laud).
Latin phrase used of one who looks to the past as better times, 1736, from Horace's laudator temporis acti se puero "a praiser of times past when he was a boy" [Ars Poetica, 173], from laudator, agent noun of laudare "to praise" (see laud).
1872, originally at Harvard, from Medieval Latin, literally "with praise," from Latin cum "with" + laude, ablative of laus (genitive laudis) "praise" (see laud). Probably from earlier use (in Latin) at Heidelberg and other German universities.
"German romantic song," 1852, from German Lied (plural Lieder), literally "song," from Middle High German liet, from Old High German liod, from Proto-Germanic *leuthan, from a PIE echoic root (see laud). Hence Liederkranz "German singing society," from German, literally "garland of songs."
c. 1600, from Modern Latin laudanum (1540s), coined by Paracelsus for a medicine he mixed, supposed to contain gold and crushed pearls and many expensive ingredients, but probably owing its effectiveness to only one of them, opium. Perhaps from Latin laudare "to praise" (see laud), or from Latin ladanum "a gum resin," from Greek ladanon, a word perhaps of Semitic origin. The word soon came to be used for "any alcoholic tincture of opium." Latin ladanum was used in Middle English of plant resins, but this is not regarded as the source of the 16c. word.
