Misadorn

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To adorn badly; to embellish with unflattering adornments.

    "Let him not set many notes to any one syllable (notwithstanding that in former times it hath been a favourite fashion;) but let his music be such that the words may be clearly, and obviously understood, which will ever be the happy effect, when componsers do not stray from the modesty of nature, into the faulty pursuit of novel graces to misadorn her."

Example

More examples

"Let him not set many notes to any one syllable (notwithstanding that in former times it hath been a favourite fashion;) but let his music be such that the words may be clearly, and obviously understood, which will ever be the happy effect, when componsers do not stray from the modesty of nature, into the faulty pursuit of novel graces to misadorn her."

Etymology

From mis- + adorn.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.