Paragon
A perfect diamond of 100 carats or more.
Mid-16th century: from obsolete French, from Italian paragone ‘touchstone to try good (gold) from bad’, from medieval Greek parakonē ‘whetstone’[1].
Also used as a figure of speech for a person or thing that is perfect or has an extremely large amount of a particular good characteristic[2].
Used in “The Mission of Jane” by Julian Lethbury while speaking about Jane. Mrs. Lethbury tries to convince her husband to adopt Jane and ensures that Jane is a healthy and quiet child and that she would not cause any trouble. To find out who the real parents of Jane are, Mr. Lethbury asks: “And to whom does the paragon belong?” (Wharton, “The Mission of Jane”), meaning that, according to his wife, Jane should be a perfect child.
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