ornate
Americanadjective
-
elaborately or sumptuously adorned, often excessively or showily so.
They bought an ornate Louis XIV sofa.
- Synonyms:
- lavish, rich, ostentatious, showy
-
embellished with rhetoric; florid or high-flown.
an ornate style of writing.
adjective
-
heavily or elaborately decorated
-
(of style in writing) overembellished; flowery
Other Word Forms
- ornately adverb
- ornateness noun
- unornate adjective
- unornately adverb
- unornateness noun
Etymology
Origin of ornate
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin ornātus well-equipped, adorned, originally past participle of ornāre to equip; see -ate 1
Explanation
If something is ornate — whether it's a ball gown, a set of dishes, or a poem — it seems to be covered in ornaments. It's lavish, flowery, or heavily adorned. Look at the first four letters of ornate, and you'll spot the beginning of its close relative ornament. Ornate most often describes how something looks, but it doesn't have to be visual. The prose in Victorian love letters was more ornate than the email messages people send today. The ornate gilded mirrors and enormous chandeliers in the palace at Versailles were the height of fashion in Marie Antoinette's time, but home decor is simpler today. Now, it seems too ornate.
Vocabulary lists containing ornate
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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.
He knows he will never have room for the tables and chairs and ornate cabinets, but they reminded him of adventure, of possibility, of youth.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026
The group’s self-titled debut album came out in 1975; at the time, the band had a more ornate sound à la Genesis.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 31, 2026
The grand palace in the luxury Palmeraie neighbourhood of Marrakech has been described as an architectural masterpiece, built by 1,300 craftsmen and featuring ornate carvings and mosaics.
From BBC • Feb. 27, 2026
The attacks are accepted as part of daily life for the city of around one million people, dotted with ornate 19th-century architecture and where luxury cars pass mobile air defence units along the bustling seaside.
From Barron's • Feb. 27, 2026
Many of the mirrors sit hollow and empty within their ornate frames.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
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.
