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any award, honor, or laudatory notice:
The play received accolades from the press.
a light touch on the shoulder with the flat side of the sword or formerly by an embrace, done in the ceremony of conferring knighthood.
the ceremony itself.
Music. a brace joining several staves.
Architecture.

an archivolt or hood molding having more or less the form of an ogee arch.
a decoration having more or less the form of an ogee arch, cut into a lintel or flat arch.

Contemporary Examples

He now becomes the thirteenth Frenchman to get the accolade, the first since 1985.
If He Had to be French… Peter Stothard October 8, 2008

As of now, it is the only hotel that can boast this accolade.
How to Get the VIP Treatment in Moscow Jolie Hunt February 26, 2010

By the way, why is special interests always shady while special needs is practically an accolade?
Up to a Point: In Defense of Lobbyists P. J. O’Rourke October 24, 2014

What has Michelle Obama, by contrast, done over the past year to merit her accolade?
Michelle Obama’s Power Trip Tunku Varadarajan October 6, 2010

“Unsung Yugoslavian novelist” is not the sort of accolade that moves a book off of a shelf.
Danilo Kis, the Stylish Historian of Infamy Anthony Paletta June 18, 2013

Historical Examples

accolade, a gentle blow with a sword on the shoulder in conferring knighthood.
The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Edited by Rev. James Wood

Thus he won the accolade of his peers as a worthy horse-man of the hills.
A Texas Ranger William MacLeod Raine

But after all, who could resist the accolade he had received?
The Mind Digger Winston Marks

Marjory, do you remember when you sat on the throne in the cave, and gave me the accolade?
The Mystery of the Sea Bram Stoker

By now Kedzie was familiar enough with names of great places to realize the accolade.
We Can’t Have Everything Rupert Hughes

noun
strong praise or approval; acclaim
an award or honour
the ceremonial gesture used to confer knighthood, originally an embrace, now a touch on the shoulder with a sword
a rare word for brace (sense 7)
(architect) a curved ornamental moulding, esp one having the shape of an ogee arch
n.

1620s, from French accolade (16c.), from Provençal acolada or Italian accollata, ultimately from noun use of a fem. past participle from Vulgar Latin *accollare “to embrace around the neck,” from Latin ad- “to” (see ad-) + collum “neck” (see collar (n.)).

The original sense is of an embrace about the neck or the tapping of a sword on the shoulders to confer knighthood. Extended meaning “praise, award” is from 1852. Also see -ade. Earlier was accoll (mid-14c.), from Old French acolee “an embrace, kiss, especially that given to a new-made knight,” from verb acoler. The French noun in the 16c. was transformed to accolade, with the foreign suffix.