• ornate •
Pronunciation: or-nayt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Florid, elaborate, adorned with lavish decorations and complicated patterns. 2. Having a flowery, showy style.
Notes: This word comes with an adverb, ornately, and a quality noun, ornateness. An ornament is anything designed to adorn or beautify. It comes with an adjective, ornamental, and noun, ornamentality. It may be also used as a verb, unleashing a host of derivations, like ornamentation and ornamenter.
In Play: Ornateness is probably more often associated with art and architecture: "Motion picture theaters of the 1930s were ornate wonders of architecture." However, its definition permits usage outside the arts: "Hardy gave such an ornate speech that it was barely comprehensible."
Word History: Today's Good Word is a makeover of Latin ornatus, the past participle of ornare "to adorn, embellish". Latin built its word on PIE (h)ar- "to fit together, join, joint", source also of Greek harmonia "articulation, harmony", from harmos "joint, shoulder", Latin ar(t)s "practical skill", borrowed by English for its art, armus "shoulder", and arma "armor, weapons", Russian yarmo "yoke", Serbo-Croatian jaram "yoke", and Polish jarzmo "yoke". French ordre "position, rule, order", from Latin ordo "row, order", German art "kind, sort, type", Dutch aard "kind, sort, nature", Danish art "nature, kind, breed" all share the same origin. With liquid metathesis, we find Russian ramo "shoulder", Czech rameno "shoulder", Welsh rhif "number", English read, and German Rat "counsel, council". (Now a kind word to Barbara Beeton for finding the ornate history of today's elegant Good Word and suggesting we run it.)
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