ORNAMENTAL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ornamental mean? 

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

1. any plant grown for its beauty or ornamental value

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

• ORNAMENTAL (adjective)
  The adjective ORNAMENTAL has 1 sense:

1. serving an esthetic rather than a useful purpose

  Familiarity information: ORNAMENTAL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ORNAMENTAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any plant grown for its beauty or ornamental value

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("ornamental" is a kind of...):

flora; plant; plant life ((botany) a living organism lacking the power of locomotion)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ornamental"):

flowering maple (an ornamental plant of the genus Abutilon having leaves that resemble maple leaves)

Derivation:

ornamental (serving an esthetic rather than a useful purpose)

• ORNAMENTAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Serving an esthetic rather than a useful purpose

Synonyms:

cosmetic; decorative; ornamental

Context example:

the buildings were utilitarian rather than decorative

Similar:

nonfunctional (not having or performing a function)

Derivation:

ornament (something used to beautify)

ornamental (any plant grown for its beauty or ornamental value)

 Context examples 

It came out upon the landing opposite to a second more ornamental stair which came up from the front hall.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Go and make yourself useful, since you are too big to be ornamental.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I ain't partic'lar as a rule, and I don't take no blame for settling his hash, but I don't reckon him ornamental now, do you?

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Native to southern Africa, it is a popular ornamental, and its juice is used alone or in preparations to soothe minor burns and skin irritations.

(Aloe vera, NCI Thesaurus)

The fish move easily through the river, they're ornamental fish, but they're part of the food chain.

(Report unveils 381 new plant and animal species in Amazon, Agência Brasil)

It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all ornamental to his inflamed eyes.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The influence of fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great use in dissipating these embarrassing associations; and, having reached the ornamental part of the premises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow, on which Henry's genius had begun to act about half a year ago, she was sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure-ground she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher than the green bench in the corner.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

My answer was, that we were overstocked with books of travels: that nothing could now pass which was not extraordinary; wherein I doubted some authors less consulted truth, than their own vanity, or interest, or the diversion of ignorant readers; that my story could contain little beside common events, without those ornamental descriptions of strange plants, trees, birds, and other animals; or of the barbarous customs and idolatry of savage people, with which most writers abound.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The latter and I would have gone out to fly the great kite; but that I had still no other clothes than the anything but ornamental garments with which I had been decorated on the first day, and which confined me to the house, except for an hour after dark, when my aunt, for my health's sake, paraded me up and down on the cliff outside, before going to bed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)