bird-of-paradise

The term is a descriptive compound, a naming convention where an exotic or beautiful entity is likened to something from paradise. The word 'paradise' itself has a rich journey, originating from the Avestan (Old Iranian) word pairidaēza, meaning 'walled enclosure'. This was borrowed into Greek as paradeisos, used in the Septuagint to translate the Garden of Eden, and entered Latin and later European languages with connotations of an ideal, heavenly garden. Applied first to the birds discovered in the East Indies, the name 'bird-of-paradise' poetically suggests a creature so magnificent it belongs in Eden. The name was later transferred to the similarly spectacular tropical plant, completing the metaphor of earthly beauty mirroring a celestial ideal.

This is a compound noun phrase, not a single word derived from classical morphemes. It is a descriptive name formed from common English words: 'bird' (Old English bridd, meaning young bird), 'of' (Old English of, a function word), and 'paradise' (from Old French paradis, via Latin from Greek paradeisos, meaning park, garden, ultimately from an Old Persian word for an enclosed park).