misadorn
misadorn verb: to adorn badly; to embellish with unflattering adornments.
Verb
misadorn (third-person singular simple present misadorns, present participle misadorning, simple past and past participle misadorned)
- To adorn badly; to embellish with unflattering adornments.
- Let him not set many notes to any one syllable (notwithstanding that in former times it hath been a favourite fashion;) but let his music be such that the words may be clearly, and obviously understood, which will ever be the happy effect, when componsers do not stray from the modesty of nature...1768, The Lyric Muse Revived in Europe, page 95
- Often when riding on subway of trolley the writer amuses himself by making a mental list of the birds which misadorn the hats of the women passengers.1916, Alabama Bird Day Book, page 84
Forms of misadorn
| third-person singular present | misadorns |
|---|---|
| present participle | misadorning |
| past participle | misadorned |
| past | misadorned |
Origin of misadorn
From mis- + adorn.
Questions about misadorn
- What does misadorn mean?
- Misadorn means to adorn badly; to embellish with unflattering adornments.
- What part of speech is misadorn?
- Misadorn is a verb.
- What is the past tense of misadorn?
- The past tense of misadorn is misadorned.
Words near misadorn in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: misadorn (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.
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Cite this entry: “misadorn.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misadorn. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.