decorator
Americannoun
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a person whose profession is the painting and wallpapering of buildings
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a person who decorates
Etymology
Origin of decorator
Explanation
A decorator is a person whose job involves decorating rooms — fixing them up, painting, arranging furniture, and so on. Your uncle might hire a decorator to help him furnish his brand new, fancy vacation home. You can also call a decorator a designer or an interior designer. Skilled decorators are particularly good at combining colors, fabrics, rugs, and furniture styles to make a good-looking space. Even if you're not a professional decorator, you could offer to help a friend decorate her apartment, painting her walls bright orange and sewing fuzzy green pillows for her sofa. Decorator comes from the Latin word decorare, "to adorn, embellish, or beautify."
Vocabulary lists containing decorator
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.
When the boys were young, they remember their dad as a full-time painter and decorator, who also did DIY for neighbours, which is when they first knew how generous he could be with his time.
From BBC • Feb. 7, 2026
"I feel the safest I've ever been," said Liberty Mini, a 33-year-old interior decorator originally from Burundi, who has lived in Lagos for three years.
From Barron's • Dec. 22, 2025
The set decorator, the painter, the greens person that puts the moss in is like, “Do you see where I put the moss right there? You see the moss right there?”
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 18, 2025
Such ubiquity means that for decades the BBC has served as the interior decorator arranging Britons’ mental furniture.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 13, 2025
In the elevator I imagine a bird decorator who’s wearing my dad’s glasses—the funky rectangular ones he wears when he has a meeting—and flipping through a bird-size binder full of twig samples.
From "Liar & Spy" by Rebecca Stead
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.
