Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Elaborately, heavily, and often excessively ornamented.
- adj. Flashy, showy, or florid in style or manner; flowery.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To adorn; ornament.
- Ornamented; artistically finished; ornamental; of an ornamental character: especially applied to an elaborate literary style.
- Adorned; decorated.
Wiktionary
- adj. Elaborately ornamented, often to excess.
- adj. Flashy, flowery or showy
- v. obsolete To adorn; to honour.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Elaborately adorned or decorated; beautifully sumptuous.
- adj. Finely finished, as a style of composition.
- v. rare To adorn; to honor.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. marked by elaborate rhetoric and elaborated with decorative details
Etymologies
- From Latin ornatus, past participle of ornare ("to equip, adorn"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Latin ōrnātus, past participle of ōrnāre, to embellish; see ar- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The modern-meets-sultry pumps and flats in ornate silk patterns could be worn with a silk qipao, or form-fitting dress.”
“Awesome, a creepy-looking ex-Nazi Pope in ornate robes and a huge funny hat.”
“Rich in ornate mosques, Islamic tombs, cave churches, centuries old houses carved in the limestone cliffs, the entire site will be inundated.”
“Examples (N.B. big images): "Head study", a very nice studio portrait of an unnamed red-haired lady; Kush-Beggi (Minister of the Interior) of Bukhara, in ornate robes on an almost as ornate carpet; the riverside city of Vitebsk; and a "Compound" steam engine with a Schmidt super-heater.”
“But also on the Greek Parnassus of that time sat the same connoisseurs of degeneration who, in ornate words, declared their pessimistic conviction that nothing in this world was worth anything except their ability to express perfectly this very thought.”
“Missing Soldiers Office," it read in ornate gold lettering on a black background. "3rd.”
The Washington Post: Clara Barton's D.C. home and office may be converted into museum
“What Ms. Surno describes as an "ornate, lush, gorgeous orgy" is a 29-minute phantasmagoria.”
“She wore a collar of a sort, rather high and ornate, which is often jeweled.”
“For architecture, among all the arts, is the one that most boldly tries to reproduce in its rhythm the order of the universe, which the ancients called "kosmos," that is to say ornate, since it is like a great animal on whom there shine the perfection and the proportion of all its members.”
“It was much too ornate, that is certain; and it alone would have made him absurd had not fate joined forces against him and at precisely this point prompted Harry, who was for once impatient with his progress, to try to reproduce the larger music coursing through his soul.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ornate’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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museum words
words from work
provenance, accession, deaccession, conservation, preparator, registrar, curator, jargon, Oz clip, bell plate, stretcher, ornate and 115 more...
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INTERP - speeches can be...
adequate, adroit, blunt, blurred, committed, divisive, exacerbating, fitting, hollow, lengthy, murky, pronounced and 123 more...
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LIT - Odyssey - key words and phrases
Key words of the Odyssey by Homer in English including all those famous repeating epitethons like
"bright-eyed Athene"
"wine-dark sea"
"rosy-fingered dawn"
"long suf...Odysseus, sea, Athene, goddess, land, Achaean, wind, wave, Ithaca, lead, Poseidon, mortal and 732 more...
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Words For Novel (Part 2)
fable, sprite, syphilitic, anvil, wonderstruck, vertigo, bridled, tufted, fettered, savvy, tweed fedora, tryst and 255 more...
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Steampunk
Words used quite often in steampunk
ansible, airship, chymical, valve, clockwork, dirigible, thaumaturgy, copper, bronze, difference engine, gear, rivets and 516 more...
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ze list
favorites, of all sorts
obscure, pretentious, debacle, vintage, ostentatious, damsel, plethora, requiem, memoir, loathe, lackadaisical, misanthropic and 82 more...
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Rococo
Words that describe the decadent Rococo art of the early 18th Century
ornate, love, lust, fat, silk, florid, amorous, drunken, cherubic, decadent, excess, velvet and 31 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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texture
words of diversity
dappled, amorphous, sinuous, roughage, gingham, mottled, rococo, ruddy, florid, ornate, sinewy, pied and 2 more...
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generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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Cessilind's Words
dvorak, ingenuity, cessation, oblique, transverse, anvilicious, evoke, verisimilitude, integrity, strega, recumbent, depression and 164 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
Tweets
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