ornate

English

Etymology

From Latin ornatus, past participle of ornare (“to equip, adorn”).

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /ɔɹˈneɪt /
• Rhymes: -eɪt

Adjective

ornate (comparative more ornate, superlative most ornate)

1. Elaborately ornamented, often to excess.
   • 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter V, in The Younger Set (Project Gutenberg; EBook #14852), New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, published 1 February 2005 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 24962326:

     The house of Ruthven was a small but ultra-modern limestone affair, between Madison and Fifth ; […]. As a matter of fact its narrow ornate façade presented not a single quiet space that the eyes might rest on after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations, and intricate vermiculations of what some disrespectfully dubbed as “near-aissance.”

2. Flashy, flowery or showy
3. Finely finished, as a style of composition.
   • John Milton (1608-1674)

     a graceful and ornate rhetoric

Related terms

• ornament

Translations

elaborately ornamented, often to excess

• Dutch: (formally) sierlijk (nl), barok (nl)

• Finnish: koristeellinen, koristeltu (fi)

flashy, flowery or showy

• Dutch: (informally) bloemrijk (nl), overladen (nl)

Verb

ornate (third-person singular simple present ornates, present participle ornating, simple past and past participle ornated)

1. (obsolete) To adorn; to honour.
   • Latimer

     They may ornate and sanctify the name of God.

Further reading

• ornate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• ornate in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Anagrams

• antero-, atoner, roneat, rotane, tenora

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Italian

Verb

ornate

1. second-person plural present indicative of ornare
2. second-person plural imperative of ornare
3. feminine plural of ornato

Anagrams

• Antero, notare, noterà, Renato, tonare, tonerà

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Latin

Participle

ōrnāte

1. vocative masculine singular of ōrnātus

References

• ornate in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ornate in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ornate in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette