adjective
Other Word Forms
- decoratively adverb
- decorativeness noun
- nondecorative adjective
- overdecorative adjective
- overdecoratively adverb
- overdecorativeness noun
- undecorative adjective
Etymology
Origin of decorative
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Initially intriguing, the jumbled chronology eventually proves to be largely decorative until a disappointing late-reel twist explains why the labored device was deployed in the first place.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026
Meanwhile, I inherited a mortgage, along with several guns, broken exercise equipment, cabinets full of expired pills and 34 decorative fish.
From Salon • Mar. 24, 2026
Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed announced cuts to the decorative lighting that usually festoons government buildings, for both Independence Day on March 26 and Eid.
From Barron's • Mar. 9, 2026
Alison-Madueke was also a regular shopper at Vincenzo Cafferella, a decorative arts and furniture store in north London, where she was known as "Sharon D", the court was told.
From BBC • Jan. 28, 2026
By 2011, the West African black rhino was officially declared extinct, thanks to poachers who mercilessly killed them for their horns—which people then use for decorative carvings and grind into powder for medicines.
From "Camp Panda" by Catherine Thimmesh
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
