adorning

adorning is the present participle and gerund of adorn.

Meaning of adorn

adorn (third-person singular simple present adorns, present participle adorning, simple past and past participle adorned)

To make more beautiful and attractive; to decorate.
- a man adorned with noble statuary and columns
Synonyms:

beautify, bedeck, decorate, deck, grace, ornament, prettify, adore, apparel, array

adorning (plural adornings)

(archaic) An adornment.
- Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
  So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes,
  And made their bends adornings […]c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
- The Text speaks of it, as an Adorning, much more excellent and valuable than Gold, or Pearls, or the most costly Array […]1699, Matthew Henry, chapter 2, in A Discourse Concerning Meekness and Quietness of Spirit, London: Thomas Parkhurst, page 47

plural	adornings

What does adorning mean?: Adorning means an adornment.
What is adorning the present participle and gerund of?: Adorning is the present participle and gerund of adorn.
What part of speech is adorning?: Adorning is a noun.
What is the plural of adorning?: The plural of adorning is adornings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: adorning (page history and authors); adorn (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “adorning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/adorning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.