decor

Etymology

It is borrowed from French décor,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} a derivative of the verb décorer (“to decorate”).^{[4][3][5][7][8]} Etymonline calls the noun a back-formation from the verb, and dates the French noun to the 18th century and the verb to the 14th.^[9] The verb is from Latin decorō (“to decorate, adorn, embellish”),^[4][3][9][5] a verb formed from decus (“ornament; grace, honour”),^[9][8] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *dek- (“to take, accept”).^[9] The OED instead derives the French noun from decor (“seemliness, comeliness, grace, beauty”),^[2] and Etymonline notes that the modern word repeats that Latin noun.^[9] The same Latin root gave decorate, decorous and decorum.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The scenery and furnishings of a theatre stage: 1897, in G. Saintsbury's Sir Walter Scott.^[2][10][3]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English as a theatre term,^[9][10] and soon also had the transferred sense "setting, surroundings".^[2][10] Etymonline finds home decor by 1900, for copies of old masters' paintings hung as decoration in a house.^[9] The sense now most common, the decoration and furnishing of a room or building, is recorded from 1926, in R. Macaulay's Crewe Train;^[2][10][9] the OED adds the layout of an exhibition.^[2] The Shorter Oxford dates the stage sense to the late 19th century and the interior one to the early 20th.^[11]

Timeline

• 1897 – the scenery and furnishings of a stage; setting, surroundings.^[2][10][3]
• 1900 – home decor, paintings used to decorate a house.^[9]
• 1926 – the decoration and furnishing of a room or building.^[2][10][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The style of decoration and furnishings of a room or building: The café's decor is all bare brick and old lamps.^[12][2][3]
2. The scenery and furnishings of a stage; a set.^{[12][2][3][11]}
3. Ornamentation or decoration in general.^[3][13]

Related words

• decorate
• decoration
• decorous
• decorum
• decent
• dignity

Usage notes

The word is also written décor.^[12][11][2] A different noun decor, meaning comeliness, beauty or ornament and taken straight from Latin, was entered by Blount in his Glossographia (1656);^[2] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1650–60.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House