adorn
uh-DORN
/əˈdɔːrn/
To make more beautiful or attractive by adding ornaments, decorations, or accessories.
Adorn carries a poetic, elevated tone. It implies adding something of high quality or beauty to enhance an already existing structure.
The story behind the word. From the Latin 'adornare,' which meant 'to equip, prepare, or deck out.' In ancient Rome, it was used to describe preparing a ship for sea or equipping a soldier, but it eventually shifted to mean preparing a space or person by making them beautiful with ornaments.
Word relationships
- decorate: Decorate is the common, everyday term for adding ornaments, while adorn is more formal and carries a sense of adding honor or exquisite beauty.
- embellish: Embellish can sometimes mean to add unnecessary or excessive details (or even exaggerate a story), whereas adorn strictly means to make beautiful.
- strip: Strip means to remove all decorations and leave a surface completely bare.
- deface: Deface means to spoil the beauty or appearance of something, the exact opposite of adorn.
Commonly confused with
- adore: Adore means to love or worship someone deeply, while adorn means to decorate and beautify a physical object.
Word family
- adornment (noun): A thing which adorns or decorates; an ornament.
- unadorned (adjective): Plain and simple; not decorated.
Collocations
- adorn with jewels
- adorn the walls
- beautifully adorned
- adorn a space
Example sentences
- "Every winter, they adorn the fireplace mantel with fresh pine garlands and brass candlesticks." Decorating a fireplace for the holidays
- "Intricate gold leaf and hand-painted murals adorn the high ceilings of the grand ballroom." A description of a luxurious palace
Memory hook
When you adorn something, you make it adorable. Embellish with beauty.
When not to use
Avoid using 'adorn' for mundane or messy tasks, such as 'adorning' a wall with sticky notes.
Fun facts
- In medieval manuscripts, the highly detailed, colorful drawings and gold leaf added to the borders of pages were called 'illuminations' designed to 'adorn' the holy texts.
Related words
Explore more words
embellish, embellished, ornament, ornamental, flattering, adore
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