DECORUM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does decorum mean? 

• DECORUM (noun)
  The noun DECORUM has 1 sense:

1. propriety in manners and conduct

  Familiarity information: DECORUM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DECORUM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Propriety in manners and conduct

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

decorousness; decorum

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 

In all points of decorum your conduct must be law to the rest of the party.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

In my own case, it is my precise judgment upon matter of dress and decorum which has placed me where I am.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

He lacked decorum and control, and was in decided contrast to the young professor of English with whom he talked.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She was a benevolent, charitable, good woman, and capable of strong attachments, most correct in her conduct, strict in her notions of decorum, and with manners that were held a standard of good-breeding.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

We came back to town quietly, taking a 'bus to Hyde Park Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down; but there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home; so we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can't go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn't know anybody who saw us—and we didn't care if they did—so on we walked.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

In vain Alleyne bethought him of where he was, and of those laws of good breeding and decorum which should restrain him: those colored capitals and black even lines drew his hand down to them, as the loadstone draws the needle, until, almost before he knew it, he was standing with the romance of Garin de Montglane before his eyes, so absorbed in its contents as to be completely oblivious both of where he was and why he had come there.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of her fortune—though her fortune bore no proportion to the family-estate—was not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with due decorum.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Though aware, before she began it, that it must bring a confession of his inconstancy, and confirm their separation for ever, she was not aware that such language could be suffered to announce it; nor could she have supposed Willoughby capable of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and delicate feeling—so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever—a letter of which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be deep in hardened villainy.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

His sense of decorum is strict.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)