ornamentation

Etymology

It is formed from English ornament + -ation, from the verb.^[2][3][4][5] The OED compares Medieval Latin ornamentatio, recorded in a British source before 1564, and French ornementation, from 1838.^[2] The verb, from 1650, is from the noun,^[2][6][3] which is from Anglo-Norman urnement and ornement and partly directly ōrnāmentum (“equipment, trappings; ornament”), from ōrnō (“to equip, adorn”).^[2][3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Ornament, the ornaments of a thing taken together, or a decorative addition: 1706, in the new edition of Phillips's New World of Words.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also dates the word to 1706.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The revised OED (2004) moved the first record back to 1706; the 1989 edition had dated the ornaments of a thing to 1851 and the action of ornamenting to 1860,^[2][8] and Dictionary.com still gives 1850–55.^[9] Etymonline dates "the whole mass of ornament" to 1839, "that which serves as ornament" to 1851 and the act or process to 1860.^[3] The action or process of ornamenting, and a branch of art or craft concerned with ornament, is recorded from 1851, in Littell's Living Age.^[2] In music the word has meant the use of grace notes to embellish a melody since 1879, in Grove's Dictionary of Music;^[2][4] the noun ornament had been used of a grace note since 1664.^[2]

Timeline

• 1706 – ornament, the ornaments of a thing collectively; an embellishment.^[2][6]
• 1851 – the action or process of ornamenting; the state of being adorned.^[2] Etymonline dates this sense to 1860.^[3]
• 1879 – in music, the use of grace notes to embellish a melody.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act or process of ornamenting, or the state of being ornamented: The chapel is plain, with little ornamentation.^[6][10][2]
2. Something that decorates; an embellishment, or ornaments taken together.^[6][10][2]
3. (music) The use of grace notes and similar notes to embellish a melody.^[2][4]

Related words

• ornament
• ornamental
• ornate
• adorn

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 m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin