Search the Dictionary

To adorn, as a book or page with borders, initial letters, or miniature pictures in colors and gold, as was done in manuscripts of the Middle Ages.

Adornment of books and manuscripts with colored illustrations. See Illuminate, v. t., 3.

One whose occupation is to adorn books, especially manuscripts, with miniatures, borders, etc. See Illuminate, v. t., 3.

To illuminate; to light up; to adorn.

To adorn with pictures, as a book or a subject; to elucidate with pictures, as a history or a romance.

To paint; to adorn with colors. [R.] "To impaint his cause." Shak.

Not peculiar or appropriate to individuals; general; common. [Obs.] Not to be adorned with any art but such improper ones as nature is said to bestow, as singing and poetry. J. Fletcher.

To adorn with a crest. [R.] Drummond.

Represented as burning, or as adorned with tongues of flame.

, in a groundwork of some other material; to form an ornamental surface; to diversify or adorn with insertions. Look,how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. Shak. But these things are . . . borrowed by the monks to inlay their story. Milton.

To diversify or adorn with things set or scattered at intervals; to place something at intervals in or among; as, to intersperse a book with pictures. Which space is interspersed with small islands and rock. Cook.

th office or authority; to place in possession of rank, dignity, or estate; to endow; to adorn; to grace; to bedeck; as, to invest with honor or glory; to invest with an estate. I do invest you jointly with my power. Shak.

ong other things; worked into any fabric so as to from a part of its texture; wrought or adorned, as with figures. His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim. Milton.

To throw rays of light upon; to illuminate; to brighten; to adorn with luster. Thy smile irradiates yon blue fields. Sir W. Jones.

nayatra, when the idol is bathed, and the Rathayatra, when the image is drawn upon a car adorned with obscene paintings. Formerly it was erroneously supposed that devotees allowed themselves to be crushed beneath the wheels of this car. It is now known that any death within the temple of Jagannath is considered to rend…

To dress, adorn, deck, or supply with jewels, as a dress, a sword hilt, or a watch; to bespangle, as with jewels. The long gray tufts . . . are jeweled thick with dew. M. Arnold.

To adorn with narrow strips or braids of some decorative material; as, cloth laced with silver. Shak.

The act, process, or art of one who limns; the picture or decoration so produced. Adorned with illumination which we now call limning. Wood.

Adorned with lions heads; having arms terminating in lions' heads; -- said of a cross. [Written also leonced.]

A grotesque head or face, used to adorn keystones and other prominent parts, to spout water in fountains, and the like; -- called also mascaron.