adornment

noun adorn·ment \ -mənt \

Updated on: 19 May 2018

Definition of adornment

1 : the action of adorning : the state of being adorned

2 : something that adorns

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See adornment defined for kids

Examples of adornment in a Sentence

the adornment of the walls with her paintings
Her room doesn't have any unnecessary adornments.
The entrance to the building has little adornment.

Recent Examples of adornment from the Web

Those personality traits—and wall adornments—may follow him to Carolina.

— jonathan jones, SI.com, "With David Tepper Buying the Panthers, Donald Trump Faces More NFL Resistance," 15 May 2018
Wearing a crisp white button-down shirt and a white blazer as a base, Boseman also sported ivory pants and a cape embroidered with gold crosses and other adornments.

— melissa minton, Allure, "Chadwick Boseman Attended the 2018 Met Gala in an All-White Outfit Worthy of a King," 7 May 2018
Church steward Dimitri De Hert said St. Charles Borromeo’s archives do not have much information about the origins of the high altar’s seasonal adornment or the mechanism used to carry it out.

— Washington Post, "AP Photos: Storytelling by painting alive in Belgian church," 4 Apr. 2018
This Kanye, this grown Kanye, suffers from white-adornment syndrome.

— stephen a. crockett jr., The Root, "Chance the Rapper Loves Kanye, Not Trump," 27 Apr. 2018
Indeed, long before makeup or millinery or jewelry, our first adornments were plants and flowers, and our love for them was — and is — universal.

— ligaya mishan, New York Times, "The Power of Wearing Flowers," 16 Feb. 2018
The sisters gave the spacious, sunny room the feel of Mexico, with plenty of lush plants and a couple of wooden adornments that suggest pergolas.

— carol deptolla, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Find an out-of-the-ordinary coffeehouse to match your mood," 10 Apr. 2018
Trujillo, who plastered his name on mountains and cities and all manner of self-referential adornments, was not one for subtlety.

— mark z. barabak, latimes.com, "He struck out at baseball, but made it big in politics. Now he's returned to his first love," 26 Mar. 2018
The living room had a flat-screen playing Lip Sync Battle, with occasional statues and aging world maps as adornment.

— sarah betancourt, Longreads, "The Religion No One Talks About: My Search For Answers in an Old Caribbean Faith," 30 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'adornment.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of adornment

Middle English adornement, borrowed from Anglo-French aurnement, from aurner, adourner "to adorn" + -ment -ment

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

in the meaning defined at sense 1

See Words from the same year

adornment Synonyms

Synonyms

beautifier, caparison, decoration, doodad, embellisher, embellishment, frill, garnish, garniture, ornament, ornamentation, setoff, trim;

Near Antonyms

blemish, defacement, disfigurement, scar;

blot, spot, stain;

flounce, flourish, furbelow, ruffle;

enhancement, enrichment, improvement;

appliqué, embossment, embroidery, fancywork;

bedizenment, gilt, glitter;

design, figure, pattern;

furnishings, regalia, trappings;

ADORNMENT Defined for English Language Learners

adornment

noun

Definition of adornment for English Language Learners

: the act or process of making someone or something attractive by decorating : the act or process of adorning someone or something
: something added to make a person or thing more attractive