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Adorn vs Deface - What's the difference?

adorn | deface |

As verbs the difference between adorn and deface

is that adorn is to make more beautiful and attractive; to decorate while deface is to damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.

As a noun adorn

is (obsolete) adornment.

adorn

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To make more beautiful and attractive; to decorate.
  • a man adorned with noble statuary and columns
    a character adorned with every Christian grace
    a gallery of paintings was adorned with the works of some of the great masters
  • * Bible, Isa. lxi. 10
  • as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels
  • * Goldsmith
  • At church, with meek and unaffected grace, / His looks adorned the venerable place.

    Synonyms

    * beautify * bedeck * decorate * deck * grace * ornament * prettify * See also

    Noun

  • (obsolete) adornment
  • (Spenser)

    Anagrams

    * * * *

    deface

    English

    Verb

    (defac)
  • To damage something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.
  • * 1869:
  • That wondrous frame where melody began / Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.
  • To void or devalue; to nullify or degrade the face value.
  • He defaced the I.O.U. notes by scrawling "void" over them.
  • * 1776:
  • One-and-twenty worn and defaced' shillings, however, were considered as equivalent to a guinea, which perhaps, indeed, was worn and ' defaced too, but seldom so much so.
  • (heraldry, flags) To alter a coat of arms or a flag by adding an element to it.
  • You get the Finnish state flag by defacing the national flag with the state coat of arms placed in the middle of the cross.

    Synonyms

    * (damage in a conspicuous way ): disfigure, mar, obliterate, scar, vandalize * (degrade the face value ): cancel, devalue, nullify, void

    Derived terms

    * defacement

    See also

    * efface