Word.ws English Dictionary

neither use nor ornament

neither use nor ornament adjective: useless.

Adjective

neither use nor ornament (not comparable)

  1. (UK, colloquial, euphemistic) Useless.
    • Where is that lad? He's neither use nor ornament!

Origin of neither use nor ornament

Implying that the subject has neither practical nor aesthetic value.

Questions about neither use nor ornament

What does neither use nor ornament mean?
Neither use nor ornament means useless.
What part of speech is neither use nor ornament?
Neither use nor ornament is an adjective.

Words near neither use nor ornament in the dictionary

  1. neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring
  2. neither fish nor fowl
  3. neither fish, flesh, nor fowl
  4. neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring
  5. neither here nor there
  6. neither use nor ornament
  7. neither … nor
  8. Neitz
  9. Neitzel
  10. Neitzels
  11. Neitzes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: neither use nor ornament (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:

Cite this entry: “neither use nor ornament.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/neither_use_nor_ornament. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.