1495 Trevisa's Bartholomeus De Proprietatibus Rerum (de Worde) x. iii. sig. zviii^v/2 They [the elements] ben not bare of arayeng nother aournynge.

?1530 tr. J. Colet Serm. Conuocacion Paulis ii. sig. Bviij The lawes that commaunde sobernes..and temperance in adournynge of the body.

1574 J. Baret Aluearie A 137 The faire greene adourning of the bankes with grasse.

1611 Bible (King James) 1 Pet. iii. 3 Whose adorning, let it not bee that outward adorning, of plaiting the haire. View more context for this quotation

1669 H. More Expos. 7 Epist. vi. 78 Her prankings and adornings in the splendour of their Altars.

1744 H. Brooke Love & Vanity in E. Moore Fables for Female Sex xvi. 152 Their various habits, and complexions, Fits, frolics, foibles and perfections, Their robing, curling, and adorning.

1791 Lady's Mag. June 320/1 A girl has learned very little, whose chief accomplishment..is the knowledge of those matters that relate merely to the adorning of her own person.

1849 C. M. Kirkland Dahcotah iv. 231 She had spent much time and labor on the adorning of a person naturally well formed, and graceful.

1885 H. R. Haggard King Solomon's Mines xx. 319 His time is too much occupied in shaving, and other matters connected with the vain adorning of the body.

1918 Homiletic Rev. Dec. 487/1 The phrase ‘a bride adorned for her husband’..suggests an adorning more beautiful than rich gown or costly jewel.

1947 E. Meynell Portrait W. Morris ii. 69 The very considerable cost of the building and adorning of the house..brought Morris down to earth with something of a bump.

2004 J. Giles Nature of Sexual Desire v. 169 The ancient Greeks..took much care in the washing, perfuming, and adorning of the dead body.

1595 M. Drayton Endimion & Phœbe sig. B4 The balls which nature in his eyes had set..sparkled from their milky lids out-right, Lyke fayre Orions heauen-adorning light.

1637 S. Rutherford Let. in Joshua Redivivus (1671) i. clxvi. 326 This love would be fair and adorning passements.

1660 R. Allestree Gentlemans Calling 32 The most adorning Accomplishments of a Gentleman.

1736 R. Erskine Paraphr. Song of Solomon 89 Gay, like a comely Flock of Goats Browsing on Gilead's stately Height, Is thine adorning Hair.

1788 T. Taylor Diss. Platonic Doctr. Ideas in tr. Proclus Philos. & Math. Comm. I. p. xvii It first perceives a thing destitute of ornament, and afterwards the operations of the adorning artificer supervening its nature.

1835 M. Shelley Lodore I. viii. 119 He had expected to find truth, clearness of spirit, and complying gentleness, the adorning qualities of the unsophisticated girl.

1856 Southern Q. Rev. Nov. 52 We regret that he has so lightly touched several topics which might have been greatly indebted to his adorning and illustrating pen.

1922 C. R. Walker Steel vi. 86 It seemed unnecessary and a little discourteous to use a rounded phrase, with all the adorning English particles.

1956 E. T. Healy Woman according to St. Bonaventure iii. iii. 216 She was full of an adorning grace,—an embellishment worthy of the daughter of kings.

2003 A. Kempton Boogaloo (2008) vii. 179 Undressed of its adorning strings and French horns.