Word.ws English Dictionary

ornate

US/ɔɹˈneɪt/

ornate adjective: elaborately ornamented, often to excess.

Adjective

ornate (comparative more ornate, superlative most ornate)

  1. Elaborately ornamented, often to excess.
    • The house of Ruthven was a small but ultra-modern limestone affair, between Madison and Fifth ;[…]. As a matter of fact its narrow ornate façade presented not a single quiet space that the eyes might rest on after a tiring attempt to follow and codify the arabesques, foliations, and intricate...1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter V, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    fancy
  2. Flashy, flowery or showy.
  3. Finely finished, as a style of composition.
    • a graceful and ornate rhetoric[1644], [John Milton], Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib, [London]: […] [Thomas Underhill and/or Thomas Johnson], →OCLC

Verb

ornate (third-person singular simple present ornates, present participle ornating, simple past and past participle ornated)

  1. (obsolete) To adorn or honour (someone or something).
    • And truely thoſe that lyue in the feare of god, (conſydering that they ſerue not only their carnal maiſters, but God hymſelfe,) they be in a good caſe: but they may not bee eye ſeruauntes. […] Saincte Paule woulde haue them to lyue ſo, that they maye ornate and ſanctifye the name of God.1552, Hughe Latymer [i.e., Hugh Latimer], Augustine Bernher, compiler, “The Second Sermon”, in Certayn Godly Sermons, Made uppon the Lords Prayer, […], London: […] John Day, […], published 1562...

ornate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

ornate in Tamil

அழகுபடுத்தப்பட்ட

ornate in Urdu

آراستہ, مزین, رنگین

ornate in Malayalam

അലംകൃതമായ, അലങ്കരിച്ച

ornate in Kannada

ವಿಪುಲವಾಗಿ ಅಲಂಕರಿಸಿದ, ಅಲಂಕಾರ ಭೂಯಿಷ್ಠ, ಅತಿ ಅಲಂಕೃತ, ಅಂದವಿಸಿದ, ತುಂಬಾ ಒಡವೆ ತೊಟ್ಟ

Examples of ornate in a sentence

  • The dining room had an ornate ceiling.
  • Medieval paintings often depict bishops in ornate vestments.
  • The ceiling was covered in ornate frescoings.

All 23 example sentences with ornate

Synonyms of ornate

Forms of ornate

Adjective
comparativemore ornate
superlativemost ornate
Verb
third-person singular presentornates
present participleornating
past participleornated
pastornated

Origin of ornate

Learned borrowing from Latin ōrnātus, perfect passive participle of ōrnō (“to equip, adorn”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix). Doublet of orné.

From Latin ōrnātus, perfect passive participle of ōrnō (“to equip, adorn”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). Compare French orner.

Words formed from ornate

Phrases with ornate

Words that rhyme with ornate

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about ornate

What does ornate mean?
Ornate means elaborately ornamented, often to excess.
What is ornate in Tamil?
Ornate in Tamil is அழகுபடுத்தப்பட்ட. See Ornate meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is ornate?
Ornate can be an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce ornate?
Ornate is pronounced /ɔɹˈneɪt/ (US).

Words near ornate in the dictionary

  1. ornamentors
  2. ornaments
  3. ornarier
  4. ornariest
  5. ornary
  6. ornate
  7. ornate aphid
  8. ornate aphids
  9. ornate hawk-eagle
  10. ornate horned toad
  11. ornate horned toads

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ornate (page history and authors); ornate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ornate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ornate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ornate (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ornate.wav.

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