Careful Words

ornament (n.)

ornament (v.)

Loveliness

Needs not the foreign aid of ornament,

But is when unadorn'd, adorn'd the most.

James Thomson (1700-1748): The Seasons. Autumn. Line 204.

  It was a saying of his that education was an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

Diogenes Laertius (Circa 200 a d): Aristotle. xi.

Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Terrible he rode alone,

With his Yemen sword for aid;

Ornament it carried none

But the notches on the blade.

The Death Feud. An Arab War-song.

Ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.

New Testament: 1 Peter iii. 4.

The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Sonnet lxx.

She was a phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight,

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,

Like twilights too her dusky hair,

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful dawn.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850): She was a Phantom of Delight.

  I hold every man a debtor to his profession; from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour themselves by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Maxims of the Law. Preface.

  He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.

Charles Lamb (1775-1834): Captain Starkey.