Decorative

How to spell decorative

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce decorative

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does decorative mean?

1. adjectiveServing to make something look more attractive rather than being purely functional.

Decorative in a sentence

• The hallway had a purely decorative mirror above the table.

• She chose a decorative border to frame the printed certificate.

Where does decorative come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb decorare, meaning 'to adorn' or 'to beautify', which was itself formed from the noun decus (and the related decor), meaning 'beauty, grace, or ornament'. The same root sense of fittingness and grace also gives us 'decorum' and 'decent', words that share the idea of what is becoming or seemly. English took in 'decoration' first, by way of French and Latin in the 1500s, and 'decorative' followed as the adjective describing something that adorns rather than serves a purely practical purpose. The spelling keeps the single c and single r of the Latin stem, and the trap for many writers is the unstressed middle: the -or- and the -ative ending both blur into a faint vowel when spoken, so the eye, not the ear, has to remember them.

How the word is built

• decor- (from Latin decorare: to adorn, beautify)
• -ative (adjective suffix meaning 'tending to')