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Adorn   /ədˈɔrn/   Listen
verb
Adorn  v. t.  (past & past part. adorned; pres. part. adorning)  To deck or dress with ornaments; to embellish; to set off to advantage; to render pleasing or attractive. "As a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." "At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place."
Synonyms: To deck; decorate; embellish; ornament; beautify; grace; dignify; exalt; honor. To Adorn, Ornament, Decorate, Embellish. We decorate and ornament by putting on some adjunct which is attractive or beautiful, and which serves to heighten the general effect. Thus, a lady's head-dress may be ornament or decorated with flowers or jewelry; a hall may be decorated or ornament with carving or gilding, with wreaths of flowers, or with hangings. Ornament is used in a wider sense than decorate. To embellish is to beautify or ornament richly, not so much by mere additions or details as by modifying the thing itself as a whole. It sometimes means gaudy and artificial decoration. We embellish a book with rich engravings; a style is embellished with rich and beautiful imagery; a shopkeeper embellishes his front window to attract attention. Adorn is sometimes identical with decorate, as when we say, a lady was adorned with jewels. In other cases, it seems to imply something more. Thus, we speak of a gallery of paintings as adorned with the works of some of the great masters, or adorned with noble statuary and columns. Here decorated and ornamented would hardly be appropriate. There is a value in these works of genius beyond mere show and ornament. Adorn may be used of what is purely moral; as, a character adorned with every Christian grace. Here neither decorate, nor ornament, nor embellish is proper.



noun
Adorn  n.  Adornment. (Obs.)



adjective
Adorn  adj.  Adorned; decorated. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adorn" Quotes from Famous Books



... adorn yourself as you please," said Howard, "and of course, dearest child, there are hundreds of things you can do for me. I am the feeblest of managers; I live from hand to mouth; but I am not going to submerge you either. If you won't ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... what I tell you, Caroline," she said, in a grave, solemn voice, "I cannot survive the disgrace of being taken prisoner by the French. I will not adorn, as a modern Cleopatra, the triumphal entry of the modern Augustus. To live and to die honorably is my motto. I prefer death to ignominious captivity. Tell it to my husband and my children. And now to the will of God I commit myself. The moment that a French soldier ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach

... bands, that should combine your snow-white wrists, Are these which shall adorn your milk-white necks. The private cells, where you shall end your lives, Is Italy, is Europe—nay, the world. Th' Euxinian Sea, the fierce Sicilian Gulf, The river Ganges and Hydaspes' stream Shall level ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... some perch nearer the matter in hand) that when I was first installed lord of such a manor, and found myself the Crusoe of that remote attic-island, which for near thirty years was to be my unmolested hermitage, I cast about for works of art with which to adorn it. The garret, that El Dorado of boys, supplied me with some prints which had once been the chief ornament of my great-grandfather's study, but which the growth of taste or luxury had banished from story to story till they had arrived where malice ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell

... friend Schmucke is to give the Descent from the Cross, Ruben's sketch for his great picture at Antwerp, to adorn a chapel in the parish church, in grateful acknowledgment of M. Duplanty's kindness to me; for to him I owe it that I can die as a Christian and a ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac


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