Aureate
adj ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Golden in color or shine.
"O wynd of grace, now blowe into my saile, / O auriat lycour of Clyo, for to wryte / Mi penne enspire of that I wold endyte."
- 2 Of language: characterized by the use of (excessively) ornamental or grandiose terms, often of Latin or French origin. rhetoric
"It may, then, be said that aureate terms were those new words, chiefly Romance or Latinical in origin, continually sought, under authority of criticism and the best writers, for a rich and expressive style in English, from about 1350 to about 1530."
- 1 having the deep slightly brownish color of gold wordnet
- 2 elaborately or excessively ornamented wordnet
Example
More examples"We are traveling, the dogs and I, and we respond to dips and turns and rises in the terrain as instinctively as a person would shield the aureate sun from their eyes or pull their hand away from a hot flame."
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin aureatus (“adorned or decorated with gold”). Equivalent to Latin aureus (“golden, gilded”) + -ate (adjective-forming suffix).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.