festoon

UK/fɛsˈtuːn/

festoon noun: an ornament such as a garland or chain which hangs loosely from two tacked spots.

Image: Lionel Allorge, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

festoon (plural festoons)

An ornament such as a garland or chain which hangs loosely from two tacked spots.
A bas-relief, painting, or structural motif resembling such an ornament.
- The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. To display them the walls had been tinted a vivid blue which had now faded, but the carpet, which had evidently been stored and recently relaid, retained its original turquoise.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
A raised cable with light globes attached.
A cloud on Jupiter that hangs out of its home belt or zone into an adjacent area forming a curved finger-like image or a complete loop back to its home belt or zone.
Any of a series of wrinkles on the backs of some ticks.
A specific style of electric light bulb consisting of a cylindrical enclosure with two points of contact on either end providing power to the filament or diode.
Two sets of rollers used to create a buffer of material on web handling equipment.
Any of various papilionid butterflies of the genus Zerynthia.
Texturing applied to a denture to simulate human tissue.

Verb

festoon (third-person singular simple present festoons, present participle festooning, simple past and past participle festooned)

To decorate as if with ornaments, such as garlands or chains, which hang loosely from two tacked spots.
- The tree trunks and the creepers that festooned them lost themselves in a green dusk thirty feet above him, and all about was the undergrowth.1954, William Golding, chapter 3, in Lord of the Flies, →ISBN, page 48
To make festoons.
To decorate or bedeck abundantly.
- He was bewildered by how the car was festooned with polka dots.
- A mysterious woman who shows up at a funeral more droopily festooned in black than the widow is making what is known as a fashion statement.2005, Judith Martin, Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Norton, page 804
(transitive) To apply texturing to (a denture) to simulate human tissue.

festoon meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Sinhala

festoon in Tamil

அழகுத் தொங்கல், தோரணம், பூத்தொங்கல், மலர் மாலைகள், மலர் வளையங்கள்

festoon in Malayalam

തോരണം, ഹാരം, അലങ്കാരവസ്തു

festoon in Kannada

ಇಂಡೆ

festoon in Sinhala

festoon: මාලය mālaya

More languagesFewer languages

festoon in Tagalog: peston

Examples of festoon in a sentence

Some teachers festoon every spare inch of wall with vocabulary choices or maths techniques to use, which look great at first, but to some children might appear quite daunting.2014 September 23, “Choosing a primary school: a teacher's guide for parents”, in The Guardian:
Nonetheless, if you're a tree, you don't want to be festooned with them.2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25...
Schematics models, handwritten papers, and extra haptic terminals festooned the walls, and the circular table had a built-in holo projector.2017 November, N. K. Jemisin, Mac Walters, chapter 10, in Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation, 1st edition (Science Fiction), Titan Books...
Many seats carry reservation labels, while the luggage racks are festooned with backpacks and suitcases.2022 November 30, Paul Bigland, “Destination Oban: a Sunday in Scotland”, in RAIL, number 971, page 77:

All 20 example sentences with festoon

Forms of festoon

Noun
plural	festoons
Verb
third-person singular present	festoons
present participle	festooning
past participle	festooned
past	festooned

Origin of festoon

Borrowed from French feston.

Words formed from festoon

Phrases with festoon

festoon pines

Words that rhyme with festoon

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about festoon

What does festoon mean?: Festoon means an ornament such as a garland or chain which hangs loosely from two tacked spots.
What is festoon in Tamil?: Festoon in Tamil is அழகுத் தொங்கல், தோரணம், பூத்தொங்கல். See Festoon meaning in Tamil.
How do you use festoon in a sentence?: Some teachers festoon every spare inch of wall with vocabulary choices or maths techniques to use, which look great at first, but to some children might appear quite daunting.
What part of speech is festoon?: Festoon can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce festoon?: Festoon is pronounced /fɛsˈtuːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of festoon?: The plural of festoon is festoons.

Words near festoon in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: festoon (page history and authors); festoon (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); festoon (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); festoon (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); මාලය (Sinhala) (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

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-festoon.ogg, en-au-festoon.ogg.

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