decorum

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

   • 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): /deˈkoː.rum/, [d̪ɛˈkoːrʊ̃ˑ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /deˈko.rum/, [d̪eˈkɔːrum]

Noun use of the neuter form of decōrus (“becoming, fitting, proper”).

decōrum n (genitive decōrī); second declension

1. seemliness, propriety

Second-declension noun (neuter).

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	decōrum	decōra
Genitive	decōrī	decōrōrum
Dative	decōrō	decōrīs
Accusative	decōrum	decōra
Ablative	decōrō	decōrīs
Vocative	decōrum	decōra

• “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

decōrum

1. genitive plural of decor

• 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