Noun

(en noun)

The act or process of producing or refining with labor; improvement by successive operations; refinement.

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=September-October, author=(Henry Petroski)

, magazine=(American Scientist), title= The Evolution of Eyeglasses , passage=Digging deeper, the invention of eyeglasses is an elaboration of the more fundamental development of optics technology. The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone,

The natural process of formation or assimilation, performed by the living organs in animals and vegetables, by which a crude substance is changed into something of a higher order; as, the elaboration of food into chyme; the elaboration of chyle, or sap, or tissues.

(computing) Setting up a hierarchy of calculated constants in a language such as Ada so that the values of one or more of them determine others further down in the hierarchy.

(electronics) The process of taking a parsed tree of an abstract integrated circuit definition in a language such as Verilog and creating a hierarchy of module instances that ends with primitive (atomic) gates and statements.

Noun

(en noun)

The act of adorning, embellishing, or honoring; ornamentation.

That which adorns, enriches, or beautifies; something added by way of embellishment; ornament.

*, chapter=12

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=There were many wooden chairs for the bulk of his visitors, and two wicker armchairs with red cloth cushions for superior people. From the packing-cases had emerged some Indian clubs, […], and all these articles […] made a scattered and untidy decoration that Mrs. Clough assiduously dusted and greatly cherished.}}

* 1994 , (Stephen Fry), (The Hippopotamus) Chapter 2

At the very moment he cried out, David realised that what he had run into was only the Christmas tree. Disgusted with himself at such cowardice, he spat a needle from his mouth, stepped back from the tree and listened. There were no sounds of any movement upstairs: no shouts, no sleepy grumbles, only a gentle tinkle from the decorations as the tree had recovered from the collision.

Specifically, any mark of honor to be worn upon the person, as a medal, cross, or ribbon of an order of knighthood, bestowed for services in war, great achievements in literature, art, etc.