''ormolu'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''ormolu'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250804005324-00-⌔

ormolu - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

ormolu (countable and uncountable, plural ormolus)

• Golden or gilded brass or bronze used for decorative purposes.
  • ✤ Had he deemed it “wisest, best,” Mr. O’Donagough was not without the means of furnishing a splendid mansion in very showy style, and yet not leaving a single morsel of lacker, or or-molu, unpaid for.¹
  • ✤ It is an old-fashioned space of pink-and-green trellis carpet and French ormolu, half-concealed by heavy brocade curtains.²

Adjective

ormolu (not comparable)

• Made from golden or gilded brass or bronze.
  • ✤ At one of the ormolu tables, near a lamp with a pink shade, Gaston insisted on making at least a partial statement.³
  • ✤ “He [R. L. Stevenson] took his mother?” I repeated, off guard, and he replied, turning a quick back flip of satisfaction, “Yeah, and his ormolu clock, and all his furniture from Edinburgh.”⁴

Verb

ormolu (third-person singular simple present ormolus, present participle ormoluing, simple past and past participle ormolued)

• To decorate with gilded ormolu articles.
  • ✤ But I have seen apartments in the tenure of Americans—men of exceedingly moderate means yet rara aves of good taste—which, in negative merit at least, might vie with any of the or-molued cabinets of our friends across the water.⁵

Etymology

From French or moulu (literally “ground gold”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈɔː(ɹ)məˌluː/
• Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (General American) IPA: /ˈɔɹməˌlu/
• Hyphenation: or‧mo‧lu

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

1. 1840, Frances Trollope, “Practical Information Carefully Obtained, and Promptly Acted upon— […]”, in The Widow Married; […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 2: ↩

2. 2023 September 23, Lauren Indvik, “God is in the details”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3: ↩

3. 1888, Henry James, The Reverberator, Macmillan and Co.: ↩

4. 1997 May 17, Marianne Macdonald, “Who is Paul Theroux?”, in Independent (UK) ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

5. 1840, Edgar Allan Poe, The Philosophy of Furniture: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

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