adorn implies an enhancing by something beautiful in itself.
a diamond necklace adorned her neck
decorate suggests relieving plainness or monotony by adding beauty of color or design.
decorate a birthday cake
ornament and embellish imply the adding of something extraneous, ornament stressing the heightening or setting off of the original
a white house ornamented with green shutters
, embellish often stressing the adding of superfluous or adventitious ornament.
embellish a page with floral borders
beautify adds to embellish a suggestion of counterbalancing plainness or ugliness.
will beautify the grounds with flower beds
deck implies the addition of something that contributes to gaiety, splendor, or showiness.
a house all decked out for Christmas
garnish suggests decorating with a small final touch and is used especially in referring to the serving of food.
an entrée garnished with parsley
Examples of beautify in a Sentence
Fresh flowers beautify every room.
volunteers beautified the roadside landscape by planting flowers
Recent Examples on the WebSome are even going so far as to hire interior designers to beautify their 12 feet by 20 feet of space.—Anne D’innocenzio, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 Oct. 2023 Workers like Jacobs beautified the city, days before politicians, executives and journalists from around the world descend on San Francisco for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference.—Queenie Wong, Los Angeles Times, 10 Nov. 2023 And Oakland’s vibrant street-level creativity is on full, grand display for all in the thousands of murals that beautify this city, from the Water Dragon of Chinatown to the various works of the Oakland Super Heroes Project that enliven West Oakland.—By
sunset, Sunset Magazine, 5 Oct. 2023 At one site, for example, at the San Diego Center for Children, 25 volunteers worked at beautifying the center’s campus, painting curbs, removing leaves and weeds, and helping in the garden.—Linda McIntosh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Oct. 2023 Shelby Girard, the brand’s vice president of creative and design, beautified this radiator with a garland, string lights, and minimalist stockings.—Anna Fixsen, ELLE Decor, 11 Aug. 2023 The neighborhood’s entrancing past cried out from under the layers of lead paint; the effort of individuals to beautify their homes gained an ethical dimension when viewed as a collective mission of curation.—Jonathan Lethem, The New Yorker, 21 Aug. 2023 Spring Home/Garden Show Now in its 38th year, the Spring Home/Garden Show returns to Del Mar Fairgrounds for a free, two-day extravaganza focused on beautifying your favorite abode.—San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Apr. 2023 More than 50 tiny doors now embellish the streets of downtown McKinney as a part of the town’s permanent art project to beautify the city and highlight the work of local artists.—Noor Adatia, Dallas News, 14 Sep. 2023 See More
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'beautify.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Middle English bewtyfien, from beautebeauty + -fien-fy
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