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Adorned   /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.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Adorned" Quotes from Famous Books



... is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted or adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore the poet is not any permissive potentate, but is emperor in his own right. Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes that ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... another wayfarer came in sight early in the afternoon. The stranger was on foot. He wore a red blanket round his shoulders and carried a long gun of ancient pattern. He was a big fellow with a swarthy face and bad eyes, and his ears were adorned with gold rings. Mr. Darling did not relish the fellow's looks, and so passed him without halting, alert, with his right hand on the butt of a pistol in his pocket. This picturesque ruffian was heading northward. After passing Mr. ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... himself before the bureau and extended his hand in a furious gesture towards the lace bed cap that now adorned the top. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... that when he had once fixed his eyes upon them he had much ado to take them off again. He viewed a vast number of these apartments, some full of china, no less fine than curious; others lined with porcelain, so delicate that the walls were quite transparent. Coral, jasper, agates, and cornelians adorned the rooms of state, and the presence-chamber was one entire mirror. The throne was one great pearl, hollowed like a shell; the princess sat, surrounded by her maidens, none of whom could compare with herself. In her was all the innocent sweetness of youth, joined to the dignity of maturity; ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock--Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik

... either straight or curly, but never approaching to the woolliness of the negro. It is usually worn short by both sexes, and is variously ornamented at different periods of life. Sometimes it is smeared with red ochre and grease; at other times adorned with tufts of feathers, the tail of the native dog, kangaroo teeth, and bandages or nets ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre


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