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DECORUM
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Propriety in manners and conduct
Synonyms:
decorousness; decorum
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("decorum" is a kind of...):
correctitude; properness; propriety (correct or appropriate behavior)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "decorum"):
becomingness (the quality of being becoming)
Antonym:
indecorum (a lack of decorum)
Derivation:
decorous (characterized by propriety and dignity and good taste in manners and conduct)
decorous (according with custom or propriety)
Context examples:
It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
He had strong feelings of family attachment and family honour, without pride or weakness; he lived with the liberality of a man of fortune, without display; he judged for himself in everything essential, without defying public opinion in any point of worldly decorum.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
Mr. Churchill had made a point of it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost; and every body admitted it to be no more than due decorum.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
I have erred against every common-place notion of decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved, spiritless, dull, and deceitful—had I talked only of the weather and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach would have been spared.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Sir Thomas's parental solicitude and high sense of honour and decorum, Edmund's upright principles, unsuspicious temper, and genuine strength of feeling, made her think it scarcely possible for them to support life and reason under such disgrace; and it appeared to her that, as far as this world alone was concerned, the greatest blessing to every one of kindred with Mrs. Rushworth would be instant annihilation.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
The possibility of Mr. Collins's fancying himself in love with her friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two; but that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from possibility as she could encourage him herself, and her astonishment was consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and she could not help crying out: Engaged to Mr. Collins!
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Sir Thomas listened most politely, but found much to offend his ideas of decorum, and confirm his ill-opinion of Mr. Yates's habits of thinking, from the beginning to the end of the story; and when it was over, could give him no other assurance of sympathy than what a slight bow conveyed.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
True, to see real acting, good hardened real acting; but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to look at the raw efforts of those who have not been bred to the trade: a set of gentlemen and ladies, who have all the disadvantages of education and decorum to struggle through.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Henry Crawford had too much sense not to feel the worth of good principles in a wife, though he was too little accustomed to serious reflection to know them by their proper name; but when he talked of her having such a steadiness and regularity of conduct, such a high notion of honour, and such an observance of decorum as might warrant any man in the fullest dependence on her faith and integrity, he expressed what was inspired by the knowledge of her being well principled and religious.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
