different between decorous vs starched

English

Etymology

From Latin dec?rus (“seemly, becoming”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?d?k???s/

Adjective

decorous (comparative more decorous, superlative most decorous)

1. Marked by proper behavior.
   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, chapter V, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 3rd edition, London: J. Jonson, published 1796, section III, pages 219–220:

     The narrow path of truth and virtue inclines neither to the right nor left—it is a ?traightforward bu?ine?s, and they who are earne?tly pur?uing their road, may bound over many decorous prejudices, without leaving mode?ty behind.

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 61,^[1]

     There came a day when the round of decorous pleasures and solemn gaieties in which Mr. Jos Sedley’s family indulged was interrupted by an event which happens in most houses.

   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 43

     But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions.

   • 1936, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, Part One, Chapter 1^[2]

     The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor.

Antonyms

• indecorous

Related terms

Translations

English

Verb

starched

1. simple past tense and past participle of starch

Adjective

starched (comparative more starched, superlative most starched)

1. Of a garment: having had starch applied.
2. Stiff, formal, rigid; prim and proper.
   • 1712, Jonathan Swift, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, in The Works of Jonathan Swift, Dublin: George Faulkner, 1751, Volume 1, pp. 102-103,^[1]

     Does the Gospel any where prescribe a starched squeezed Countenance, a stiff formal Gait, a Singularity of Manners and Habit, or any affected Modes of Speech, different from the reasonable Part of Mankind?

   • 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, London: J. Johnson, Part 1, Chapter 5, Section 3, pp. 217-218,^[2]

     A cultivated understanding, and an affectionate heart, will never want starched rules of decorum—something more substantial than seemliness will be the result; and, without understanding the behaviour here recommended, would be rank affectation.

   • 1817, Walter Scott, Rob Roy, Volume 2, Chapter 8,^[3]

     I was not a little startled at recognising in his companions that very Morris on whose account I had been summoned before Justice Inglewood, and Mr. MacVittie the merchant, from whose starched and severe aspect I had recoiled on the preceding day.

   • 1961, Bernard Malamud, A New Life, Penguin, 1968, p. 107,^[4]

     ‘ […] CD is a fair-enough scholar but starched like my grand-daddy’s collar.’

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:starched.

Anagrams

• cartshed, destarch, herd cats