CS Knowledge Base

Learned borrowing from Latin decōrum, neuter form of decōrus (“proper, decent”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈkɔːɹəm/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːɹəm
• Hyphenation: de‧co‧rum

decorum (countable and uncountable, plural decora or decorums)

1. (uncountable) Appropriate social behavior.

   Synonyms: decency, courtesy, propriety, etiquette

   • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 57:

     Everyone was assembled in the dining-room. Under the circumstances, we were naturally not a cheerful party. The reaction after a shock is always trying, and I think we were all suffering from it. Decorum and good breeding naturally enjoined that our demeanour should be much as usual, yet I could not help wondering if this self-control were really a matter of great difficulty. There were no red eyes, no signs of secretly indulged grief.

   • 2010, Pseudonymous Bosch (pseudonym; Raphael Simon), This Isn't What It Looks Like, ch. 4

     It was sort of a finishing school. You know, to teach proper social decorum and so on and so forth.

2. (countable) A convention of social behavior.
   • 1834 January, [Edgar Allan Poe], “The Visionary”, in The Lady’s Book, page 41, column 2:

     In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design was to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to the decora of what is technically called “keeping,” or to the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to object, and rested upon none; neither the “Grotesques” of the Greek painters, nor the sculptures of the best Italian days, nor the huge carvings of untutored Egypt.

• Cudmore

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [dɛˈkoː.rũː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [deˈkɔː.rum]

Neuter nominalization of decōrus (“becoming, fitting, proper”).

decōrum n (genitive decōrī); second declension

1. seemliness, propriety

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• “decorum”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “decorum”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

decōrum

1. inflection of decōrus:
   1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular
   2. accusative masculine singular

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

decōrum

1. genitive plural of decor

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

decorum

1. genitive plural of decus

• dekorum

Unadapted borrowing from Latin decōrum. Doublet of dekoracja and dekorować.

• IPA^(key): /dɛˈkɔ.rum/
• Rhymes: -ɔrum
• Syllabification: de‧co‧rum

decorum n

1. (literature) decorum (principle of classical rhetoric, poetry, and theatrical theory concerning the fitness or otherwise of a style to a theatrical subject)
2. (anthropology) decorum (appropriate social behavior; propriety)

• “decorum”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[1] (in Polish)