use nor ornament
- idiom
- Archaic
:
ni útil ni decorativo
- She criticized the gift as being use nor ornament—it served no purpose and looked unappealing.
Examples
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They found the old table was use nor ornament and decided to throw it away.
-
The broken clock was use nor ornament, taking up space without any value.
-
His presence in the meeting was use nor ornament, so no one missed him when he left.
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After reviewing the report, I realized the data was use nor ornament for our analysis.
-
His outdated laptop was use nor ornament, just a burden in the office.
Synonyms
133
2.5
An action that will not help
88
5.6
Bad or worthless and often causing trouble
A thing that is not useful and not attractive
Antonyms
How Useful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'neither useful nor decorative' is directly derivable from the constituents: 'use' (function), 'ornament' (decoration) and the negative coordinator 'nor' indicating a neither/nor relation. Although the phrasing is somewhat archaic or elliptical (often appearing as 'neither use nor ornament'), the semantic composition is transparent to a learner who knows the individual words.
Etymology
Use nor ornament comes from older English where people spoke of use (something that works) and ornament (something pretty). If an object had neither quality—like a broken chair that does not work and is not pretty—they called it use nor ornament, so today it means 'neither useful nor decorative'.