Encomium is a Latin word deriving from the Ancient Greek enkomion (ἐγκώμιον), meaning "the praise of a person or thing." Another Latin equivalent is laudatio, a speech in praise of someone or something.

Originally was the song sung by the chorus at the κῶμος, or festal procession, held at the great national games in honour of the victor, either on the day of his victory or on its anniversary. The word came afterwards to denote any song written in celebration of distinguished persons, and in later times any spoken or written panegyric whatever.

Encomium also refers to several distinct aspects of rhetoric:

• A general category of oratory
• A method within rhetorical pedagogy
• A figure of speech praising a person or thing, but occurring on a smaller scale than an entire speech
• The eighth exercise in the progymnasmata series
• A literary genre that included five elements: prologue, birth and upbringing, acts of the person's life, comparisons used to praise the subject, and an epilogue

• The basilikos logos (imperial encomium), a formal genre in the Byzantine empire