ADORNED • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Adorned

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/ədˈɔrnd/ 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.

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Etymology of 'Adorned'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Adorned" Quotes from Famous Books

... one of those on whom fortune deigns to smile. My house is not resplendent with ivory and gold; nor is it adorned with marble arches, resting on graceful columns brought from the quarries of distant Africa. For me no thrifty spinners weave purple garments. I have not unexpectedly fallen heir to princely estates, titles or power; but I have something more to be desired than all the ...

— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... bell relate? It was so very old, it was there before our grandmothers' grandmothers were born, and yet it was a child compared with the merman, who is an old, quiet, strange-looking person, with eel-skin leggings, a scaly tunic adorned with yellow water-lilies, a wreath of sedges in his hair, and weeds in his beard. It must be confessed he was not very ...

— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... in any wise reflect his monstrously heaving, oil-dripping surroundings. He was a small, deliberate man, with oceans of repressed energies. His skin had the waxy whiteness of a pond lily. An exquisitely trimmed black moustache adorned his mouth. The deep brown eyes of a visionary rested beneath the gentle, scythe-like curves of ...

— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... little bay, and the princess made haste to disembark with Sunlight, but, before leaving the ship, she tied to her belt a pair of tiny gold slippers, adorned with precious stones. Then mounting Sunlight, she rode about till she came to several palaces, built on hinges, so that they could always turn ...

— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... opens with a pretty national festival, in which the youths and maidens, adorned with wild carnations wend their way in couples to Ljora (love's-bridge in the people's mouth), from whence they drop their flowers into the foaming water. If they chance to be carried out to sea together, the lovers will be united, if not, woe to them, for ...

— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

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